Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-04-17
DINNERS AND P|EN.
Bessie Bramble Is Not Sure
We Would Not Be Better
if We Followed
WARD M'ALLISTER'S LEAD.
Indigestible Food Was Responsible
for the Blue Law Curse.
DETAILS OF A PROPER FEAST.
How the Uncrowned King of Gotham 60
ciety Raves About Wines
MEN ARE BETTER COCKS THAN WOMEN
WARD M'ALLISTER'S LEAD.
DETAILS OF A PROPER FEAST.
How the Uncrowned King of Gotham so-
ciety Raves About Wines
MEN ARE BETTER COOKS THAN WOMEN
lwRrrrEN FOR THE pIsPArcH.I

twRITTEN FOR THE D1sPATcH.1
''No woman can give as finished dinner
as man. There is always something in
the detail which has escaped her." This is
the expressed opinion of the great Ward
McAllister, who is accepted as the highest
authority on society in New York.
This is a revelation indeed. 1t has been
held heretofore that the taste and faculty OF
women particularly fitted them for cooking
and giving entertainments. 1t is true that
the most famous cooks in the world have
been men, but they are solitary and shining
peaks in the art of cookery. They stand
alone, as did Cesar when master of the
world, as Bonaparte when counted the
greatest general in Europe, as Shakes
peare, who ranks without q peer in poetry.
The art of cookery and the chemistry of
food deserve really more attention than
they receive from both men and
women. The mind and body oi
men depend upon their food and
Its proper preparation. The sourness
and austerity of the Puritans was to a con-
siderable extent, it has been observed,
owing to their food. They decried the
pleasures OF the table as strongly as other
earthly delights Good digestion was to
them very inferior concern as compared
with escaping the wrath to come by prayer
and fasting.
Dyspepsia and Calyinism.
To be an out-and-out really strict Chris
tian of the Calvinistic stripe, it was a neces-
sity almost to have the dyspepsia 1t is
quite likely that it was his constant indi-
gestion that made the theology of Calvin so
truly blue. No dyspeptic takes cheerful
views of life. The heather rage and, as
Jeremiah put it in his Lamentations, "the
people are an assembly of treacherous men,
they will deceive everyone his neighbor,
and will not speak the truth, they have
taught their tongues to speak lies, and
weary themselves to commit iniquity." I"
Green fields, rippling waters, beauteous
flowers, the most beautiful creations of art,
the feasts fit for the gods go for nothing
with the man who has the dyspepsia
The foremothers knew not how to cook,
hence the forefathers made the ''blue laws"
The saleratus biscuits, the salt-rising bread,
the fried meat the hard cider and sodden
pies at every meal, of the times of the
grandiathers, have much to answer for in
the way OF the orthodoxy that made people
melancholy and disinclined for dancing,
cards and every sort of gayety. The day
has been, as We discover in the old books,
when leanness, lankness, general cadav-
erousness in a minister gave evidence of
extreme piety, and a burning of the mid
night oil in preparing the terrific sermons
with woe in their recognition of sin and
total depravity, and frightened small chill
dren nearly to death with fear of eternal
flames
The Sign of Good Student.
Students of the theological seminsries
were recognized by their hollow chests, sal
low faces and generally miserable appear
snce, caused not by their piety SO much as
by the fact that they were weaklings to be-
gin with, and then lived in cheap boarding
houses where bad cookery was the rule or
stinted themselves, through poverty, on
insufficient and innutritious food.
Is the decay of Calvinism due to better
living? Is the demand for the revision of
the Westminster Confession owing to the
fact that indigestion is no longer measure
of piety? Have the opposition to the blue
laws the tendency of the times toward
sweetness and light, and the greater cheer
fulness of the people as manifested now,
been developed by an improved knowledge
of the cookery? That this has something
to do with the Improvement can hardly be
denied.
The cookery of France is more delicate,
complicated and economical than that Of
England and America The famous French
cooks rank as great artists and command
large salaries. These serve long appren-
ticeships under masters of the art and take
great pride in their business. The million
aires OF New York and elsewhere who must
have the best of everything, regardless of
expense, have taken up a rivalry in these
men cooks and pay them enormous wages.
Duties of High-saIaried Cooks.
What people of wealth think of the per-
fection Of cooking as conducive to health is
shown by the fact that their cooks receive
from 1000 to $4,000 year for not elab-
crate, ten-course dinners, but for cooking
simply what best satisfies the appetite and
prevents indigestion, that coarser or richer
1ood would be sure to cause
England in cookery is behind, but that
the people there are waking up to its i'm
portance is shown by the establishment of
cooking schools all through Great Britain,
for those of both high and low degree. The
same is being done in this country perhaps
to less extent, since it is mostly taken up as
fad for but season. The Woman's Club
was the first to introduce a course of lect-
ures on cooking and practical demonstra-
tions in Pittsburg The lecturer was a
graduate of a cooking school in Edinburg
of high reputation, which she amply sus-
tained while here to audiences SO limited as
not TO meet expenses. But few women
seem to desire to learn the trade, which in
marriage they expect to pursue. Many of
them seem to imagine that when they get
married they enter upon "a land of pure
delight" with plenty of money and nothing
to do. A girl told her employer not long
AGO that she was ''tired of working and in
tended to get married" She very soon
found after the ceremony that she was "out
OF the trying pan into the fire.
The swedish Woman Cooks.
1t may be that women are not fitted for
this work. But Ward McAllister, while
asserting that no woman can equal a man
in getting up dinner, yet admits that next
TO q chef who is a true artist comes the
Swedish woman who has learned the busi
ness Sweden is famous for its schools of
cookery, and turns out trained cooks as
graduates. He further admits that for
cleanliness and economy the woman is
ahead. His butchers bill with a woman
was from $3.50 to $275 a month, while with
a French chef it ranged from $3.50 to $500,
and all other expenses went in abou. the
same ratio. No French cook, he observes
will take any interest in his business unless
he receives praise and criticism. Perhaps
II is fo- the same reason that so few woman
takes an interest in the work. How many
wives spend hours getting up good dim
H. -, l.