The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-10-18
NOT DAINTIES ONLY.
Mrs. John Sherwood on the
Making of Good Dinners.
THE COOKING SCHOOLS LIMITS
Difficulties In the Position of the Young
Hostess-The Prettiest Entrees
Table Decorations.
Copyright. 1891, by M. E. W. Sherwood.

tneneaA opeIdtion winch dlsdalns good eating,
thing which consists of a long sequence of APP
precautions and many severe decisions of the
judgment-Brilidt Sdudrin
A good dinner and a pretty hostess, for
there are terms on which beauty and beef
can meet, much to the benefit of both, one
wit, several good takers and as many
good listeners, or more of the latter, is said
to be combination which even our great
est statesmen do not despise.
Man wants good dinners. 1t is woman's
province to provide them; but nature and
education must make the conscientious
diner.
1t is to be feared that we are too much
In hurry to be truly conscientious diners.
Our men have too many school tasks yet,
ike politics, money making, science, men
tai Improvement, charities, psychical re-
search, building railroads, steam mont
tors, colleges, and such like gauds, to de-
vote themselves as they ought to the ques-
ton OF entrees and entremets.
Just see how the noble language of
France, which Racine dignifed and Mo-
here amplitied, respectfully puts on its
robes lined with ermine when it ap-
proaches the great subject of dinner.
1t is to be feared that we are far off from
the refinement of G0urmandise, although
many visits to Paris and much patronage
of LIE Doyeas, the Cafe Anglais and the
Cafe des Ambassadors may have pre-
pared US for the entremet and the "Pieces
de Resistance"
But are We as conscientious az the gen.
tleman in Punch who rebuked the giddy
girl who would talk to him during dinner
by saying: "Do you remember that you
are in the house where they offer the best
entrees in London ?''
That was man to cook for! He had
his appropriate calm reserve of apprecia-
ton for the supreme de volatile" He
knew how to watch and wait for the
sweetbreads and green peas. Not thrown
away upon him was that last turn which
makes the breast of the partride become
delicate Vandyck brown. How profound
and how respectful was he to that immor-
tai art for which the great French cook
died, suicide for belated turbot.
"Ah!" said Parke Goodwin once when
in one of his most brilliant Brillat Sa-
warm moods, chow it ennobles a supper to
think that all these oysters will become
ideas!'
But, if dinner is not cookery book,
neither is it matter of expense alone.
1t is question of temperature, of the
selection of guests, of the fitness of things,
of proper variety and time.
The French make their exquisite dinners
light and short. The English make theirs
a triae long and heavy.
The young hostess to strike the juste
milien must travel, reflect and go to cook
ing school. She must buy and read
library of cooking books. And when all
is done and said, she must realize that
cookery book is not a dinner. There
are some natures which can absorb
nothing from cookery book. As Lady
Galway said that she had ''put all her
wits into Bradshaw's railway guide and
had never got them out again." so some
amateur cook said that she had tested her
recipes with the ''cook book in one hand
and the stove in the other" yet the wit
had stayed away. All young housekeep-
ers must go through this discipline, in a
land where cooks are as yet scarce, of try
ing and yet failing. and at length succeed
ing She must go to la belle France to
learn how TO make soup, for instance.
That is to say, she must study the best
French authorities.
The mere question of sustenance is easy
of solution. We can stand by COW and
drink her milk, or we can put some bread
in our pockets and nibble it as we go along,
but dinner as represented by our compli-
Gated civilization is a matter of interest
which must always stand high amongst
the questions which belong to social life.
1t is very strange attendant circum-
stance that having been a matter of pro-
found concern to mankind for so many
years, it is now almost as possible to find
bad dinner as good one, even in Paris,
that headquarters of cookery.
There would be no sense in telling a
young American housekeeper to learn to
make sauces, and to cook like a French
chef, for it is profession requiring years
of study and great natural taste and apti-
tude. A French chef commands higher
salary than secretary of state or than a
civil engineer. AS well tell young lady
that she could suddenly be inspired with a
knowledge of the art of war or of naviga-
ton. She would only perhaps learn to do
very badly what they in ten years learn to
do so well. She would say in her heart:
For my part / am surfeited with cook
cry. ! cried something raw, if you please,
for me. Something that has never been
touched by hand, except the one that
pulled il off the blooming tree or uprooted
il from the honest ground. Let me be
Timon, if you will, and eat green radishes
and cabbages, or Beau Brummel, as
phyxiated with the consumption of
green pea, but no ragout, coetette COM
pote cream or any hint of cooking till the
remembrance of all that / have seen has
faded and the smell of it has passed
awayW
Thus said one who attended cooking
school and had gone through the mysteries
NH,
s'Sdute" means, had mastered EXTREMES,
and entree and plats and hors d'oeuvres,
learned that "boudias de Uedu" are simply
veal buildings, something a little better
than a veal croquette, made into little
pie, and had found that all meats were
much alike. There is great deal of nom
sense talked about making good dishes
out of nothing. A French cook is very
economical and he uses up odds and ends,
but he must have something to cook on.
Stone broth does not go down with q
hungry man. nor bad food however dis
guised with creamed sauces. little
learning is a dangerous thing, and if she
attempts too much she will fail. But she
can read and reflect, and get the general
outlines of cultivated cookery. As TO neat,
cultivated cookery being necessarily eX-
trayagant, that is a mistake. A great,
heavy, ill-considered dinner is no doubt
costly. Almost all American housekeep-
ing is wasteful in the extreme, but the
modern varieties, which depend on the
skin of the cook and the arranging of the
housekeeper, all these are the triumphs of
the present age, and worthy of deep
thought and consideration.
Let the young housekeeper remember
that the pretty entrees made out of yester-
days roast chicken or turkey will be a
great saving as we'll as a great luxury, and
she will learn TO make them.
For amongst a busy people like our