The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1884-10-02
Popular Cookery.

Whether from somo instinct preserv.
ativo of health, or from nero taste,
man distinctly prefers hot foodt and to
crafty this fancy puts himself and his
womankind all over tho world to tho
trouble of daily cooking. Even
bread" Is eaten hot by tho majority
of mankind-tho uso of broad which
will keep we'll being European par
ticularity; and very fow races habitu-
ally cat anything cold, except when
hot food is unattainablo or expensive.
They like their rice or their millot, or
their wheatcakes, or their vegetables,
or their meat, just as it comes from tho
fire. AS this practice involves i'm
menso additional expenditure for firing
| which in most places is ono of the
hcaVy burdens on the poor-arld the
loss of at least six hours labor q week,
this of itself might be hold to provo
that tasto 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 tanrht except by hol
mother, and in tho most traditic..o oi
way. Improvement, if any is ever
made, is exceedingly slow; and among
some people popular cookery has prob
ably rctrograded, owing in this in
stance, to tho chasm of years which, so
to speak, broke or interrupted tho pop
ular knowledge of the way to prepare
meat. They found fresh meat difficult
to procure, and failed to hand down
the necdful instruction for its prepara-
ton. Half mankind at least knows
nothing of boiling; of those who do
know, another half will eat their vege-
tables in sodden condition. Among
Tho races who eat meat, only limited
percentage of persons try to mako
meat tender; we believe tho flosh-eat-
ing Mongolds form an exception to this
rule, and among those who cat grain
there is distinct preference for tho
under-cooking alike of flour, rice and
millet from belief that such food is
more fully satisfying.
But cooking docs not advance. A
new article of diet is occasionally add.
ed, iko the potato or q new condimont,
ike pepper; but it may be doubted if
European laborer's dinner is mado
bit more palatable than tho dinner of
an lsraclite was when tho laWoiyor
promulgated tho curious notion that
roas3 meat was moro acceptable to tho
S"pSii'i pONSlo Inlll llCaJ
stcwcd. Indeed, the way to mako n
kibab, which is known to tho humblcst
in Asia, has been lost here; and only
tho gypsies arc aware that meat coyor-
cd with damp clay and placed among
the hot ashes is not only delicious but
much moro nourishing than meat eithor
baked or boiled. The natural way with
a civilized people, if they cared for nico
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 lis only
IN the making of bread that men COM
bnei 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 Amcrica-tho Western woman
making bread for her household as tho
Mexican woman makes her thin cakes.
Yet tho 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 tho horrible stuff which
our ancestors called peer.-London
SDPct1{O,.