Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1881-10-29
8oatberp 8taaoaro,
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MoMINNvILI4E, 81 TENNESSEE.
Cooking.


Cooking.
There is, doubtless, no domestic need
so urgent at the present writing as the
need of good cooks. The ordinary
servant girl inows nothing of the chem
istry of cooking and cares nothing for
it, and the same remark is true of a
great many women who do their own
work. MHltitudes of housekeepers need
to learn that there must be more in
what we eat than something to allay
the pangs of hunger. 1t is one thing to
eat, it is quite another thing to be fed.
The experience of gentleman related
not long ago to us is the common ex-
perience: "My wife goes to market
and selects the best of everything and
has it sent home, and when it comes on
the table it is not fit to eat-spoiled in
the cooking" If that lady had the
strength to cook for her family there
would be no lack of relish and perfec-
ton in the food brought on her table,
but she, like many others, must depend
on the labor of others.
The science of cooking is an exact
science, as exact as chemistry or mathe-
matice or music or astronomy 1t re-
quires long and careful training, deli
cate manipulation, quietness of sense,
correctness of taste, soundness Of iudg-
ment and ripe experience. How many
of these qualities one can expect to find
in the foreign importations of servants,
our readers very well know. How
many of them are found let the multi
tudes of housekeepers who have trained
one "greenhorn' after another for the
last thirty years testify.
The simple and easy solution of the
whole question lies in the establishment
and multiplication of cooking schools.
Before we shall have these in numbers.
the minds of our women must be
awakened to the vital necessity of con-
certed movement in this matter It. is
not difficult thing to obtain graduates
from normal schools to fill the positions
of teachers; we have graduates from
art schools, commercial schools
ecery kind of school but those
of cooking, housekeeping, sowing
and Go we not need these even
more than we need some of the
othersP We have begun in social life
with the most far-away needs, and now
we begin to approach those nearer and
nearest. Astrology was the first So
called science, and in studying this as
tronomy was born. The science of
chemistry had its origin in the search
for the philosophers stone, which would
transmute everything it touched into
gold. We have now the most beautiful
china and glassand silver services to eat
from. Is it not quite time that the food
served in these dishes should be as fine
in quality, as high in art, as exquisite in
preparation, asfaultless in taste, as the
dishes themselves9 We want schools OF
plain cooking and schools of art cook
ing, with regular courses and q diploma
at the end of the last course. Those
possessing diploma would not lack for
immediate and remunerative situations.
If several ladies in any city or village
would unite in fitting up kitchen, hir-
ing Chef, and sending their own sery-
ants or children aspupils, the movement
might be begun. They could contract
with their servants to remain with them
at certain price for certain time in
consideration of the tuition received at
the cooking school. Many housekeep-
ers would be glad to be pupils and have
thc'~ cI;ld~o., ,,--,.n 49, Ssri->----
ant-glrls are made to realize that GER
tain employment and increased pay are
sure to those who have been through a
course OF culinary instruction, they will
be eager to avail themselves of it. Until
that time, and without the cooperation
OF their employers, they will take as lit
tie interest in the subject as possible.
When Mr.. Blot gave lessons in cookery
some years ago, Brooklyn gentleman
sent his cook to take the course, paving
her tuition, which was $50. He said
that in the next five years she saved him
that $50 dozen times over. She
learned to economic everything, TO
make savory dishes from plain materi-
ais, to cook in the best and easiest man.
ner, and to. get up her dinners in style
and taste without waste of material and
without expense. .,e,rs
Here is work in which the fields are
white for the harvest. Miss Corson in
New York and Miss Parloa in Boston
are pioneers in the work, and are doing
an immense amount of good. Their ex.
ample should be followed in every, CITY
and large town, till cooking schools are
as common as district schools, till The
woman who can not cook will be as ,un-
common as the woman who can not read
and write and spell. We have abolished
slavery, we are trying to abolish intern
perance, cruelty to children and cruelty
to animals; let us abolish bad cooking
and inaugurate the reign of wholesome
ly-prepared food. Thus shall we efEec-
lively pave the way for the long-ex-
pected millennium. IN. Y. Tribune 80.
How Disease May Enter Houses. i