Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-12-24
THE MAN WHO cocks.
OF CaIifornia Husban,

ECCtntEICAEAOA VI O1AIlOEMLa 1uSDbHu4
From Lippincott's Magazine.
Every old Californian having, in '49,''
baked his own bread and boiled his beans,
deems himself a good family cook. He
maintains even greater conceit than this:
he deems himself cook superior to any
woman in the world, when he chooses to
concentrate his mind On culinary affairs.
On such man, when duly married, there
breaks out once or twice year a culinary
mania. He must cook; he will cook. He
watches the opportunity when his wife has
prolonged her afternoon visit little longer
than usual. He invades the kitchen. He
kindles fire in the stove. Before kindling
that fire he leaves open every door in the
house, from cellar to garrett. He turns the
damper wrong. The stove smokes the
wrong way. He draws water in the wrong
bucket to fill the tea kettle. These things
are terrible to mentions, but they are often
done in California. He throws potato and
other vegetable parings in the cleanest pail
he can find. Wherever he walks and what
ever he touches he leaves smuss." He
leaves knives, forks and spoons all over the
house; also, dish rags; he puts one of these
in bis pocket. He ceases to be a rational
or accountable being. An old male Califor
MIA cook, married and in his wife's kitchen,
is not well spring of pleasure.
He brings all the frying pans he can find
into use. He sets their sooty bottoms on
the clean pine table. He contemplates
making tea. He reflects as to the quantity
he used in the mines for making" He
cannot recollect exactly. He Grams several
fistfuls into the teapot. He viii have
enough anyway. No one WHO drinks there
of sleeps that night. Nervous. He essays
to make biscuit. He wonders how much
saleratus they used in the mines to get
good rise on. He uses enough. He kneads
his dough, and wandering yacantly about
the house, leaves traces of -four at every
step. 1t is in the parlor, on the door knobs,
on the bannisters. He can cook. He says
he can cook better than any woman in the
world ''if he was only mind to give his
mind to it." This conceit is never to be
taken out Of him. 1t is peculiar to all old
Californians; for he made bread in the
mines. 1t was bread too-good to kill.
They say ''two partners" who 'cabined"
with him died of heavy bread indigestion.
He was given two hours to leave that camp.
Now we see him ravishing his wife's kit
chen. He has burned up all the choice
newspapers lying about, which the folks
wanted to read. He is using table butter
to cook with, and sets the cooking butter on
the table. Things fall into that dough-
buttons, matches, and bits of coal.
In the midst of all this culinary riot,
chaos, smoke, grease, SCOT, rags and -four,
the wife comes home. She opens the hall
door, and is oppressed by the cloud of
smoke. She knows then that the culinary
fit is on her husband. She steps into the
kitchen. There he stands, red-heated, flus-
tered, caught in the act, with big spoon
in one hand, tormentOr in the other, a
spot of black on his nose. The fryingpan
is full Of hot, smoking lard. 1t sizzles and
sputters all over him, as he stands there
with his back to the stove, and all over ev-
erything for many feet around. There
comes from the oven door a suspicious
smell Of smoke; his biscuit are burning.
All sorts of things in pots are boiling over.
She rushes 10 his assistance. Both burn
their fingers. He has mislaid half the stove
covers, and cannot find them. One is dis
covered, a fortnight afterward, up stains
under the bed. How did it get there? He
says be didn't know he was carrying it up
at the time. Absent minded. He was
looking for a clean towel at the time.
His wife, in despair, goes to her room and
cries; and thinks of her happy girlhood
days. She does not come down to supper
No one eats much that evening. He has the
whole table to himself. He hasn't much ap-
petite either. He gets up every half min
ute for some forgotten article-for the salt,
for cup, for saucer. When he has en-
tirely finisehd, he finds the potatoes forgot
ten-they are still on the stove boiling
boiling piecemeal, boiling fIriously, like the
driving of Jehu, the son of Nimshi, who
drove rapidly.
Next day his wife comes down stairs and
hires woman to clean up. Things get
settled in about a week. 1t is his only
fault. He sticks to it that be can cook bet
ter than any woman in the world, "if he
chooses to give his mind TO it." She says
the mania never broke out on him until they
had been two years married. Twice year
it RACES, and the kitchen smokes. All Cal
ifornia husbands have a touch of this dis
ease. 1t was contracted in the mines, in
the flush DAYS of 40