Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1879-03-05
FEBRUARY.
Cookery In the Farm House.

of materials will live far better than the
German at the same expense. 1t is the
work of true cookery to make food not only
more palatable, but more digestible. 1t is
here that we Americans are most prone to
make failure, and disastrous one. BY
the excessive use of sugar, butter, lard and
fine -four, and especially by our practice of
cooking fats and starchy material together
in bread, pastry, cake, doughnuts, buildings,
baked beans, ETC., and in frying our meats,
we make our food indigestible. This is
fruitful cause of ill-health. Next to care
lessness about drains and the accumulation
of putrefying material about our buildings,
the ill.health most prevalent in our farm
houses is caused by our unskillful cookery.
That our diet is in some way source of
disease has been for a long time recognized,
and the fault has been variously charged
upon meat, fat, bolted flour, etc. etc. The
truth of the matter, which has been over
looked from lack of correct physiological in
formation, is that the fault is not so much
in the materials as in the cooking of them.
In the desire for rich food sugar, fat and
-four have been compounded together in
messes which no stomach is competent to
dissolve, or transform into wholesome nutri-
ment. The materials themselves are innocent
and wholesome. 1t is the way in which they
are mixed and prepared that renders them
injurious, simply because it renders them
less soluble in the digestive fluids OF the body.
There can be no doubt that our unscien-
tifc cookery is responsible for very grievous
evils, extending much further than we are
apt to think or believe. Considered merely
as bodies, the stomach is the principal organ
of our bodies. By it all the material of
bone, muscle, tendon, nerve and brain is
prepared, and if it is not well prepared all
these parts suffer. When the body suffers,
the soul is disquieted within it. 1t is hard
for dyspeptic man or woman to be kind,
gentle, forbearing, patient. The Swedish
seer, Swedenborg, says that the first com
munication from the other world which he
received was by voice which said to him,
" Eat not so much |" Afterwards he says
that foul, undigested matter in our stomachs
attract evil spirits about us. Be this as it
may, we all know that spiritual grace abides
with difficulty in the soul that inhabits a
dyspeptc tenement. Good cooking, there
fore, may be regarded as a means of grace,
and like cleanliness it is akin to godliness.
We know that there are no women in the
world who strive so anxiously to serve their
tables properly as our good farmers wives.
They are always seeking for and exchang-
ing recipes for the kitchen, and these con-
stitute a material portion of the domestic
departments of our agricultural papers. But
somehow the principles of that domestic
chemistry which we call cooking are neither
taught nor understood, either by writers or
readers, and the result too often is that
many of our most popular dishes are de-
structive of the health of those who eat Of
them. We hail therefore the advent of a
better class of cookery books, which have
emanated especially from those Schools OF
Cookery that have, within the past few years
sprung up in Europe, and in some of our
large American cities. That cookery is an
art to be acquired in this way will seem
novel to many of our readers. 1t will strike
our old-fashioned housewives good deal
as the idea of scientific farming strikes our
old-fashioned farmers. Considering that
"science is only the Latin equivalent Of
our English word knowledge" there is
however, no need of being much scared al
it, There are women and men in the world
who have been obliged to study cookery as
science, aud have found their profit in it
Thoroughly skillful cooks, who can make
each dish exactly the same and exactly right
every time, are in great demand for hotels
restaurants and in wealthy families of the
cities, and their yearly salaries mount VI
among the thousands. Intelligent people
ible food. They require not only that theil
diet shall taste good, but that it shall moi
trouble them, or make them ill, after it il
eaten. They are willing to pay money t.
secure this. Hence high pay for good cooks
and hence also the training schools for teach
ing cookery.
We have before us the handbook of on,
of these cooking schools, the title page o
which reads lessons in Cookery. Hand
Book Of the National Training School TO
Cookery, South Kensington, London. T,
which is added The Principles of Diet il
Health and Disease. By Thomas X. Cham
bers, NJ. d. Edited by Eliza A. Youmans
New York d. Appleton & Co., publisher:
$40 and SOL Broadway. Price $780," W
saw this book noticed in the Popular .Scienc
Monthly, recently, and sent for it. We hav
examined it carefully, and we regard it 70
household purposes as necessary book a
we regard Professor Johnson's " How Crop
Crow" and How Crops Feed" to guild
us in outdoor work. And what is NOR
to the point, it is at once adopted b
the " women folks" as Just the thing tina
has long been wanted. The younger one
as soon as they have looked it through, e,
claim "This is the book Now we don
want mother to show US Everything
told, from the beginning to the end, OF tn
preparation OF every dish. Nothing is lei
out because it is presumed that anybod
ought to know it. All the details are given
weights and measures are exact; the ordt
Of putting things together is strictly lai
down; the amount Of fire and the time r
quired for cooking each dish are stated eve
the relative cost OF the dishes and of mea
is explained, The first lesson begins
telling how 10 clean a stove, and how
kindle fire. Washing dishes and cleaniu
utensils constitute another lesson. Roas
ing, boiling, baking, frying of everythir
that is cooked in any of these ways are
scribed infinitely. No point that can pc
sibly arise in the mind of the most inexpel
enced is unexplained. The language is as sir
ple as it can be made. The re-cooking of mea
in nashes, pies, ETC., is all laid down. Sid
dishes and soups of all sorts are given, al
every possible way of preparing meat dish
explained. Then comes equally detailed
rections for preparing fish, making pudding
bread, pastry, cooking every sort OF veg