Millheim Journal. [volume] (Millheim, Pa.) 1876-1984, 1883-02-22
BORDERING Dinner"

Society may be considered with re-
gard to the joys and troubles of dining,
as diYided into three great zones or sec
tions, whereof one alone is for the most
part greatly exercised with the daily prob
lem :--"What shall we eat ?" There is,
on the one hand, privileged and much
envied class that can eat pretty nearly
whatever it chooses, and which leaves
the task of selecting and providing the
dishes for the chef meal of the day to
some trusty subordinate. The unfortu-
nate persons who belong to this section
have usually chief who has found out
what are their favorite viands, and who
with moderate share of ingenuity can
compose each day bill of fare with
which the master or mistress of the
house will be pleased, or at least conten-
ted. Very possibly this class may not
be so large as the Vulgar herd suppose,
and glance into the interior sanctum
of some fine house might discover a
Cabinet Minister or the wife of "A knight
of the Garter engaged in the undigni-
fled and unstatesmanlike proceeding of
holding morning colloquy with the
| cook. But the class, wehther large or
small, undoubtedly exists, and one of
the N ost notable specimens of it was
the great Duke of Wellington, who was
never observed either to know or care
what he was eating, and would haye
found it far more difficult to draw up
menu than to win a pitched battle in
the field. On the other hand, there is
the class of unfortunates or fortu-
mates, as the philosophers call them
whose fare is regulated by very simple
rule, for it consists of what they can
get. Not only prisoners and pensioners,
school-boys and dodgers in seaside
boarding-houses, must put up with the
food that Is set before them by their
caterers, but a large number of per-
fectly independent subjects of her Ma
lesty, living i'll their own dwellings, are
reduced TO a similar necessity, and
spared the difficulty OF making choice.
The cottager who has invested a suitable
share of his Saturday wages in a Joint
is thereby committed to diet which
he cannot vary for the next two or three
days, or at least can only vary, if he
dimes at home, by cutting a different
vegetable from day to day from his
garden. But between these two ex-
tremes lies the broad zone, including
tirs yrhtle- ef- middle classes, of
those who have daily TO answer, either
personally or by deputy, the question,
'What will you have for dinner to-day?"
Now, to great many managers of
house-holds-young wives, especially,
and nervous widowers this question is
fraught with untold terrors. 1t is the
one great trial of the day, never fully
provided against, ever new though al
ways old, perpetual anxiety and exer-
else for the mind, whose inventive
powers seem somehow or other to be
never In SO slack a condition as at the
moment when the inevitable house.
keeper appears with the well-known
formula Cn her lips. No amount of
experience or practice can overcome the
absence of that originality which is es-
sential to a good domestic caterer, but
which Nature has denied to so many
laIY pF ,,,
all other departments of the housewives
art. For the epicure, or at least the
female epicure, is born, not educated
and no amount of teaching in the most
approved school of cookery will atone
for the absence of that essential quail
ticatiOn that the orderer of a dinner
should feel an interest in the work.
Thus it is that the wife who is deficient
III this natural gift may be heard among
her most intimate friends entreating to
to be posted up in some nice new dishes
which will selve to ornament and en-
lven her hi of fare for month or so
to come. Lists are then made out, or
pencil marks scored against the recon-
mended delicacies in that cookery book
which the unlnventive housewife never
fails to have at hand. But the entrees
md entremets which looked and tasted
SO nice at the friends house, present
very often quite different appearance
and flavor at home and the expected |
successes are as often as not dismal fai-
lures, especially when any particular
merit is expected in them. This sad
result will some times follow even '"m |
the best regulated households" and |
when the cook is not only competent
but honestly desirous of giving the new
experiment fair trial. But how many |
cases are there where this autocrat of
the lower regions is either unable or
unwilling to achieve the proposed feat
kleptOmanIa.