The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1883-11-02
Good Cooking.
a We make an extract from the intro.
itlaetory chapter of the Cottage Kitch-
en- by Marion Harland, Just published

y uuetory chapter OF the cottage hitch
en-" by Marion Harland, just published
| by Charles Scribner's Sons:
have been a summer boarder in
farm houses where they Calculated &c
raise nearly everything for the table,;
have been permitted to sit in the nea
kitchen of the mechanics wife, anc
chat with her while she made read,
"his" dinner; have gone on errands o.
business and mercy into far humble,
abodes, yet where provisions were suf
ficient as to quantity, If common as to
quality. Noting silently the process
es Of preparing food in all of these,
have made up my mind that the unsat
isfactory results are attributable mainly
to two faults on the part of the house
wife.
First an ignorant indifferentism on
the subject of dainty cookery as rule
Her family fare as well as their neigh
bors. They are no better educated il
this respect than herself,or suppose that
poor people must be content with poor
living. She has to get up three meals
day, three hundred and sixty-five
days in the year The business is tire
some, because trite and uuinteresting
She groans over baking, boiling and
frying, almost as dolorously as over the
cleansing OF pots, pans and kettles. II
is flow that goes on forever without
the sudden sally, the sparkle and the
daily of the brook. She never asks
herself whether her husband may not
weary of driving nails or laying brick,
of ploughing, sowing, and reaping,
That is his lifelabor. She would de-
spise him if he were as apathetic in
performance, loathed it as drearily as
she does kitchen-work. If she is am
bilious, she is apt to wish aloud that
she had trade or profession. Her
web of life is hit-or-miss carpet, and
the knots have way of coming out on
the right, which is the wrong side. She
is always discouraged, chronically fa-
tigued, and given to declarations that
a tread-mill is bower of pleasure com.
pared with the existence of the woman
who does her own work She would
hardly discern exaggeration, and GER
tainly see no burlesque in the humor-
ously pathetic last words of the old
woman who was
"Going
Where washing amt done, nor churn-
| ing, nor sewing,
And everything else will be just to my
| wishes
For where they don't eat there's no
washing of dishes.
Dent mourn for me now, nor mourn
for me never,
For I'm going to do nothing for ever
and ever"
Far be it from me to deny that there
are many and sharp crooks in the lot
of our tired wife. Said patient voice
to the pastor who spoke of the praises
of heaven, the advance from glory to
glory-"Some time perhaps I'll nnder-
stand it all Just now I'd like to pray
to God to let me lie still in my grave
for couple of hundred years or so.
Just to get rested out, you know y
The fardel of human existence and
toll is bound more tightly upon some
shoulders than upon others. Yet the
question to be pressed home to our
housewives consciousness and con-
science is, whether she appreciates the
truth that Home is her sphere since the
Master has put her there and hedged
her in by loves and duties, and house
keeping her trade, her profession, her
mission.
Fault the second, I write down as
mismanagement of time and forces
The preparation of each meal is post
poned until there is just time to get it
ready between the commencement of
the business and the hour of serving.
Instead of forecasting breakfast in all
its details, and so far as possible laying
materials ready to her hand, time ana
nervous power are wasted when both
are scant, in thinking, "What can we
have?" and in collecting gradients. The
toilet is hurried that the work may be
seized by the first handle that offers
itself. Kindlings were not prepared,
nor oatmeal put in soak at bedtime
The beef and potatoes that could have
been wrought into croquettes, which
would have been firm and fit for fry
ing by morning, remain as they were
left at dinner time-the one a shape
less chunk, the other pile of slaty-
blue bullets. Clearly the only resort
is that bane of the national kitchen,
the frying-pan. The worried woman
would cook coffee and biscuit in it, if
she dared. "There is wit goes to the
boiling of eggs" says the ancient ad
age. Calm judgment and foresight; a
wise weighing OF resources and capa-
bilities are as much needed in kind, if
not in degree, in the management of a
kitchen as of an empire. She who feeds
judiciously the bodies of that portion
of the present generation given into
her charge sets her mark upon her age
and the next as truly as does he who
writes an epic that is worthy to live, or
she who delights the world with a
"Middemarch"
What our cottage housekeeper needs
most is the just conception in cookery
as in graver concerns-of the impor-
tance of common things. She is apt
to slur over such weighty matters Of
the law of dietetics and health as bread
making and potato-boiling, and rush
with mistaken ambition after Clancy
dishes" Hers is a zeal without knowl-
edge as truly as that of the art-student
who dives at once into color without
the preliminary drill of charcoal and
cubes. When the principle is reduced
to practice, the term, 'good plain cook"
will be title of honor, instead of dis
paragement.
As the lack of time for the days