Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1884-09-04
Popular Cookery.

Whether from some instinct preserv-
ative of health, or from q mere TASTE
man distinctly prefers hot food; and to
crafty this fancy puts himself and his
womankind all over the world to the
trouble of daily cooking. Even
''bread'' is eaten hot by the majority
of mankind-the use of bread which
will keep well being European par
ticularity; and very few races habitu-
ally eat anything cold, except when
hot food is unattainable or expensive.
They like their rice or their millet, or
their wheatcakes, or their vegetables,
or their meat, just rs it comes from the
fire. As this practice involves i'm
mense additional expenditure for firing
which in most places is one of the
heavy burdens on the pOOr-and the
loss Of at least six hours labor a week,
this of itself might be held to prove
that a taste for pleasant food is univer-
sal.
Among the immense majority of
mankind each household cooks for it.
self, the work falling mainly on the
wife, who is never taught except by her
mother, and in the most traditional
way. Improvement, if any is ever
made, is exceedingly slow; and among
some people popular cookery has prob
ably refrigerated, owing in this in
stance, to the chasm of years which, so
to speak, broke or interrupted the pop
ular knowledge of the way to prepare
meat They found fresh meat difficult
to procure, and failed to hand down
the needful instruction for its prepara-
II l.
nothing IF boiling; of those who do
know, another half will eat their vege-
tables in a sodden condition. Among
the races who eat meat, only q limited
percentage of persons try to make
meat tender; we believe the tlesh-eat-
inc Mongolds form IN exception to this
rule, and among those who eat grain
there is distinct preference for the
under-cooking alike of -four, rice and
millet from belief that such food is
more fully satisfying.
But cooking does not advance. A
new article of diet is occasionally add
ed, like the potato or q new condiment,
like pepper; but it may be doubted if
q European laborer's dinner is made
o bit more palatable than the dinner of
an lsraelite was when the laWgiyer
promulgated the curious notion that
roast meat was more acceptable to the
superior powers than meat boiled or
stewed. Indeed, the way to make q
kibab, which is known to the hum blest
in Asia, has been lost here; and only
the gypsies are aware that meat cover
ed with damp clay and placed among
the hot ashes is not only delicious but
much more nOurishing than meat either
baked or boiled. The natural way with
a civilized people, if they cared for nice
food, would be to entrust the prepar-
alton of it to professionals, who would
learn that trade by apprenticeship and
necessarily improve; but, except in Tus-
cany and South France, this is hardly
done anywhere, though it ought to be
the easiest of arrangements. 1t is only
in the making of bread that men COM
bine; and they have only just began to
do that in Europe, and do not do it in
Asia, or we believe, in most parts Of
North America-the Western woman
making bread for her household as the
Mexican woman makes her thin cakes.
Yet the world everywhere in order to
get its drinks, and the things it drinks
gradually but quite steadily improve.
Household brewing is, by the mercy Of
Providence, dying out; and nobody in
Germany, America, or England would
now swallow the horrible stuff which
our ancestors called beer.-LondOn
Spectator.