The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1879-08-22
Economy in French Kitchens.


We believe that the French cooks have
the reputation of being the most eco.
cooks of all nations, and the
subjoined extract from very gossipy
and interesting article in an exchange
shows how matters are looked after in
the French kitchen:
Suppose that one egg is left, or one
potato. Here, Bridget, or the house,
wife herself, says, zone is not worth
keeping and throws them into the
swill-tub. The French housewife is not
tempted by that unhappy Institution al
ways yawning at hand. On the contra
ry, suppose the egg is soft-boiled; she
drops it into lineup. and makes it
hard boiled at once. One hard-boiled
egg chopped fine is what she needs in
composing q salad, and the French
housekeeper is wise in behalf of good
health, of good taste and of the beauty
and variety of her table, to have salads
innumerable-as many kinds of salads
as Bottom had of wigs. There is the
egg-the salad shall grace the tea-table.
Or, there is the one potato. Your
French housewife knows the value of
soup; she does not make huge soup
and expect her family to dine upon it;
she does not have her soup always of
one kind-she varies the kind; and she
has small dish of soup as prelude to
our dinner; here she serves health and
variety. The potato nicely cut in
wedges shall be one of the ingredients
of her soup. The beginning of her
soup is generally of bones. She has a
stone jar and the bones are usually
trimmed closely out of the uncooked
meat, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and
put in this jar, over which a cloth is
tied, and it is kept in very cool place.
Almost every day, with few bones and
q variety as to other ingredients, she
will concoct q wonderful soup-a white
soup, q brown soup, clear soup, a
vegetable soup, and the spoonful of
beans or peas. the few slices of tomato,
the remnant of the rice or the macaroni
shall not be ANONYMOUSLY cast out, but
the soup shall be as is most convenient
to the stock on hand, and all
these fragments, neatly kept, are
to 90 therein. The French are
not remarkably religious, but they
do follow up the monition, 'gather
up the fragments that nothing
be lost In one of our families, sup
pose that we have q cup of milk left
from breakfast; in our closet is a slice
or two of sponge or cupcake, small
saucer of jelly or preserve. In the
American household the milk is fire.
Quently thrown out or one of the chill
dren is sbidden to drink it up Biddy
adds the jelly or preserve to her own
breakfast, $50 she can have the saucer
to wash The cake is given to the chill.
dren as an interlude to meals, to spoil
their appetites. Lo! the foreign house
wife! The cup of milk with an egg,
little flavoring and trifle of thickening
turns to custard; the cake is cut in thin
pieces, spread with the conserve and
laid in a white pudding dish; the Gus
tard is poured over it; it goes for ten
minutes into the oven; the white of an
other egg is, with little sugar, convert
ed into meringue, and spread on top;
now the yelk of the second egg is beaten
with little cream or milk, and sugar
and spice, into a sauce, or instead of
the cream little homemade wine or
the juice left from some canned fruit is
used, and here is q sauce for the dessert.
We eat it. Delicious! What dainty,
extravaganza things these foreign people
use. Instead, we Americans would
have thrown away the chief part of the
dish, and would have provided for des-
ert huge pie, more costly and not half
so wholesome.