New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1877-09-21
An INSTITUTE or COOKERY.

Yesterday, at Wellesley, Mass, was appointed
for the foundation of a public institution
to promote appetite and digestion. We refer to
the Ridge Hill Laboratory, which appears to
be branch of the Massachusetts Institute
of Cookery. The programme of. the ceremO-
MES was so jolly, that at times, on reading it,
we were inclined to consider the affair a big
Joke But the prospect of innumerable good
dinners in the future doubtless lent unusual
hiarity to the occasion, and this appears to have
been felt even in advance by the gentleman to
whom was intrusted the preparation of the
programme. The only serious feature of this
was q prayer at the beginning-fOr the rest,
there was to be speaking, singing and banquet,
at which it is to be hoped the ancient and still re-
vered Massachusetts dishes, the baked beans, the
brown-bread and the Goldfish and potatoes, APP
peared in glorifed state. Greater excellence
than has already been attained in the prepare
ton of these is perhaps impossible, but we
may hope that the best traditional formulas
were regiously adhered to. An official So
lemnity was to pervade the occasion and grace
fully temper the meirment-it was to be called
"The Governors Fete" We can imagine the
spirits of Ude, of Brillat-Savarin and of Julien
/
especially ought to have been present, for ne
lived in Boston, and there invented the famous
soup which perpetuates his name.
The science of cookery is a very old one,
and had its vOtaries in Greece and in Rome,
and equally, no doubt, in Babylon and Palmyra.
But up to the present time it has been science
for the nourishment and delectation of kings,
of princes. of the great and rich Happily it
has been reserved for our day to democratize
it, and good cookery for the people is now
discussed as means of health, of happiness
and of public prosperity. What was it to
Apicus how the Roman pebeian dressed his
lentils? Horace sneers, so far as it was posi-
bic for the good little man to sneer, at the
messes which the reapers swallowed, and sug
gests that their powers of digestion must be
extraordinary. Ii was before the Senators that
the great turbot was exhibited and it was to
settle how the fish should be cooked that the
potent, grave and reverend body resolved itself
into synod. Nobody then was good enough
to publish little book showing how dinners
at fifteen cents each might be provided for
workingmen's families, as Miss Corson has
done. Nobody thought there was any morality
involved IN the matter, or recognized any
occult relation between the stomach and the
brain What had the poor to do with CASTRO
nomical pleasures Now, as Mr.. De Quincy
shows, in one of his longest essays, tho true
way to diminish intemperance IN drinking is
to give the STOMACH a suiiciency of well-cooked
food. There can be no Prohibitory Law against
good eating in Massachusetts,, and the Institute
of Cookery ought to do a deal to help along
the Prohibitory Law against bad drinking.
The object of the Massachusetts, Institute of
Cookery is to prevent the people ESQ it says)
from being poisoned" by the kitchen. Its
establishment is the result of desultory dis