The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1876-07-17


meat as desirable and appetlzing food. 1t
often happens that man driving up 10
country tavern and demanding the meal
for which he is hungry, hears the squeak
and futter of the dying chicken IN the
back yard and "A half hour after the FOWL Is
placed before him ready cooked ana but
tered. No civilized stomach can fall to re-
sent such nearness of life to death and the
gridiron. The chicken Is, In truth, I'M
eatable. You may and should cook q
blue fish quite fresh from the water, as
every wel-inforined person knows; but to
lay the palpitating flesh of an animal on the
fire is to outrage all the laws of the noble
science of gastronomy and to defy every
often committed In the back country,
where 1t is almost impossible to get a
piece of beef, for instance, At for human
eating.
There are many thousands OF people
now sojourning Mt farm houses, at country
boarding houses, and at village taverns
who will sadly confirm the truth of what
we say. They have left behind them, with
the bricks and mortar, the cares of BUSH
ness and the pleasures Of the town, tender,
juicy and well-cooked meats, nor will they
get them again until they return to their
own markets and tables.
Another vice OF the country table Is the
prominence given to dishes which offer
little or no nutriment, and clog the
stomach. Warm bread, pies, cake, dough-
nuts, preserves, aud such trash, are dear to
the rural palate, but they also cost the
,,.nI -, Oh. a. L. 60 Al nNn
farm house even properly cooked yeget-
ables-to get potato that is not water
logged. You see the consequence In the
gauut faces of the men, their consumption
OF patent medicines, and their sallow faces
while the women alternate the days with
sick headaches, and their faces lose the
lines OF beauty. We know that the life of
the farmer is not conducive to sprightli-
ness of manner aud elasticity of gait, and
that his wife is usually an over-worked
creature, with few joys to brighten her
existence, and few exctements to vary its
monotony; but there is no reason why
they should not be in healthy physical
condition, provided their food is of proper
sort aud properly cooked. Though there
lie all around them the materials for
and prepared mt slight cost, 1t is rare
to see on their table the green dish
so common among the peasantry of
Europe, and deemed so essential to din
ner by every man who knows what n din
ner should be. If our farmers would
spend portion of what they lay out on
nostrums on olive oil, and put it in salads,
they would find less need for swallowing
pills and tinctures, sarsaparillas aud bal
sans. Even at the sea shore, where the
water yields abundance and variety of
food, you find the people neglecting what
Heaven So bountfully gives them, and
painfully masticatiug tough meat. and in
viting dyspepsia with hot bread, pies, and
cakes.
In the great cities, and especially in New
York, cookery has advanced rapidly. Not
even in Paris can you get better dinner
than here, and our greater variety of ma
teria's for food enables us to distance the
world in the matter of eating If we only
know how to cook them. The result is
shown in the better proportions and more
beautiful roundness of our properly-fcd
women, aud in their superior health and
vivacty; while the men who dine like
| philosophers and metropolitans have a
handsome and vigorous look, which differ
entiates them from the less wise and less
| highly-favored denZens Of provincial
towns like Philadelphia, where the true art
of cooking does not seem ever to have got
| diffused.
We, therefore, welcome the appearance
| of man whose eccentricity takes on the
| character of Mr. BAKERS, III his new
school shall succeed III leavening the lump
of our average unwholesome aud unscieu-
| tific cooking, it will deserve place along
side those more esteemed and lauded
schools Of learning which train our youth
in purely intellectual branches. We shall
watch with interest and solicitude the
progress of Mr.. BAKERS benignant insti-
| tuition.