The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1882-07-29
The Cost of Living.

The steady advance in the price of meats
and, for that matter, all the necessaries OF
life-has begun to attract the serious at
tention of our social economists, and the
daily papers TEEN with suggestions as to the
best methods of cheapening the cost of living.
No one seems to be able to give satisfactory
reason why prices should continue to go up,
in the face of the fact that last winter was
very favorable for herding operations in the
West, and pasturage this season has been
unusually rich and abundant, and the public
are generally inclined to charge it all to the
manipulation of the market by the big specu-
lators. But whatever the cause, it is certain
that in the big cities Of the East, at the
present time, roast beef occupies the place
of luxury ON the tables of the poor, and
that persons in comfortable circumstances
even have been forced to consider the expe-
diency of IesOrting to a vegetable diet. It
is but natural, perhaps, that those who have
been accustomed to breallfasting on a tender
beeisteak and dining on juicy roast should
regard it as q great hardship to be deprived
of their standard sources of nOuTishment,
but as matter of fact there is little doubt
that many Americans are extravagant in
their consumption of meats, and during the
hot weather at least would be physically.
benefited by partial abstinence. We speak
now, of course, only of such persons as do
not earn their living by manual labor. Our
farmers, mechanics, mill operatives, and all,
indeed, who are usually included in the
| laboring class require more substantial
nourishment than those who are engaged
| in literary occupations, and with them meat
is as much q necessity in summer as IN
winter. Nothing can take its place. The
| principal obstacle in the way of the sue
| cess OF an anti-beef eating movement, how
| ever, is not so much the fondness of our
| public for a meat diet as the inability of
| American cookery to provide a palatable
substitute The ingenuity which Europeans,
and especially the French, display in making
savory dishes out OF the cheapest and poorest
materials is in this country sadly lacking
! We do not mean to say that our methods of
preparing food are unwholesome or that our
tables are not as well provided, so far as sub
stantial dishes are concerned, as those abroad,
but simply that our housekeepers as rule
are familiar with the art of cookery in its
rudest form only, and lack the skill to prepare
those delicious soups, salads, condiments and
| pastries which are to be had for mere trifle
| abroad, and are seen there on tables where roast
meat is almost an unknown luxury. Variety
is the spiceof life according to the old prOverb,
and there is nothing to which it applies so
| aptly as to cookery 1t is a weIl-known fact
pals upon the appetite in a very short time,
and there are few, we imagine, who would
care to dine on corn beef and cabbage three
hundred and sixty-five days in the year But
it is not only variety that is wanting on our
tables, but palatableness in the dishes fur
nished. Even in our crack restaurants it is
rare thing to find the vegetables properly
cooked. They are nearly always overdone
and lack their distinctive favOr-as if, in
deed they had all been boiled in the same
pot along with the pork or the beef If the
advance in the price of provisions should
induce our housekeepers to make a serious
study of the possibilities of scientific cookery
it would be n public blessing; and that,
perhaps, is what they will be forced to do
sooner or later Already much good has
been accomplished through the schools of
Philadelphia, and other leading cities, at
which poor girls receive practical instruc-
ton in the art of preparing wholesome and
nutritious dishes from cheap materials-and
! especially in those economies of the kitchen
which the knowledge of how to utilize
"waste" makes possible-but the field is still
but poorly occupied. There are plenty of
schools at which our young women may
acquire knowledge of needlework, but the
opportunities for obtaining skilled instruc-
ton in the art or science of cookery-for it
| is both-are few and far between. Yet it is
just as important that our girls should be