Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1882-08-19
Our Agents.
III. receints Of the following persons will be
THE ooLoRED COOK.
A Fine Description of the Empress
of the Kitchen.

THE COLORED COOK.
A Fine Description of the Empress
of the Kitchen.
From the Texas Siftings.1
There is quite a variety oil colOred
cooks iniesting the Kitchens OF the
soutbern end of the United States oil
North America at the present day.
They vary in color, from the sombre
shades Of a burned stump i'll a dark
alley, at midnight, to the mello%
tints of a ripe pumpkin, tinged with.
the RAYS of the rising sun. They
vary in other respects. The young
one is more impudent and less re-
spectful than the old one. When she
comes in search of q '..place," she is
ant 10 say that .s'cuilud Wash-lady"
told her that the "white woman what
lived here wanted TO hire a cook -
but they all resemble each other in
one OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES ignorance OF
cookery is 20 degrees above proof,
and their consciousness of their igno-
rance fn~ay.safeiy be said to regis
ter ut least las degrees Fahrenheit in
the shade.
We have not space to describe ali
the varieties of the coiored cook, but
will tell what we know of the COM
INQUEST ype, the culinary artist who
IL fat, black, and 40 years of age or
thereabouts. She is proud OF having
ssb'longed' 10 de ole judge to- de
Wah," and she is fond OF comparing
the present with the past: Her com
parsons are not complIme ntary to
rhoS -,oeort 4 Cor ho,. nr~t.OaininDs
are, to her, as the gloomy ruins of
social and material things standing
out against a brilliant aud golden
tinted background lob de gorgeous
ness OBJ de good ole days"
With the LOYALTY or her race, she is
faithful 10 her old master and mis-
tress tothe extent ofpcalling o. them
for the loau of half q dollar Whenever
she is financially embarrassed.
She seldom stays at any u place
more than three months at a time.
When hired, she promises to come on
Thursday. the day the Old cook in
tende leaving, but she does not come
until the following Monday evening,
when she arrives, accompanied by Il
small trunk with wall paper pasted
over the outside of it., and u large
u "a uCA
patch ork bed-sprend. During the
first few days she acts SO that her
mistress absorbs the idea that the new
cook is a treasure. But her satisiac.
ton in anu admiration of her treasure
receives successive and severe shocks
as the idiOsyncrasies of the cooks
character begin to develop.
She can cook u chicken, but all the
colored people csn do that. 1t is u
talent that is hereditary. Beyond that
her capacity is limited. She breathes
on the tplales, and polishes them Oh
her sleeve before putting them on the
table. She develops religious pro-
clivities which necessitate her attend.
ance at church three times on Sunday,
IL prayer-meetiDg on Wednesday,,
and choir practice on Saturday night.
She is also q member of; tho "Benev-
client Order of the Sisters OF the Mys-
terieus Ten Wise Virgins" the
weekly meetings of which require
her attention on Tuesday nights.
Thus her mistress has only three
evenings in the week on winch she
feels at liberty to entertain her friends
at her own house.
The favorite dissipation of the col.
ored cook, beside religious observ-
ances, consists of sitting down on the
kitchen doorstep to rest, and going
toysleep there while the biscuits burn
to q cinder, aud the coffee boils over
aud mixes with the cabbage and other
fruits in the adjacent skillet. i
She has days on which she suffers
with ga misery"in her head. probably
from too much religious observance
mn 4 h sarouinpo oun.,i,,r o,,h r., tIa,.l
days she takes u gloomy view of life,
breaks dishes, forgets to put Royal
baking powder i'll the baLter-cakes,
and manufactures coffee of the kind
that leaves successive circles of an
alluvisI deposit on the inside of the
cup. 1t is not we'll 10 demonstrate
with her on these occasions. Ii you {
she will talk to herself contiuen- ]
TALLY in 8 low tone of voice during
the next few days about being over.
worked. In the cotton picking sen
son nothing short of lessons GU The I
the use OF the parler to receive
her company III, and seven nig hts OUT
OF the week, will induce tile averaged I
cOlOred cook to remain ut her post OIL {
duty aud continue the destruction OIL
groceries. Cotton picking, II
OohyO aoSSoso ubt "
dance at night in the barn. have at. |
no peculiarly offer will out
weigh, and the cotton-tield ia TO ihe $
COOK what the fashionable watering .
place is to her young mistress. !
When she comes 10 hire she tells
her employer that she is not married.
awhile. when the latter notices
the frequent appearance OF "a culiud I
g'emman" about the kitchen and tile
cooks boudoir. and brings her to task
for having concealed the fact that SHE
was married, she replies: "Fo' de-
Lawd IN, we Isn't married ; we jes
took up Wild one anodder." +.
Honesty is her strong point; she
can be trusted with Il dollar to take
to market in'the mornlng,and She will
invest fifty cents OF 1T In provisions
and cheerfully turn over fifteen cents
Of change to her employer on her re-
turn. The appetite of the %coIoreu
cook is something that the columns of
this paper are too limited In extent to
describe.