The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1895-02-18
DULL MONoToNY IN FOOD.
Il Will Eventually Result In Banishii!g
AnnetIIe and Gnstrnnnmic Comfort.

1t VIII Eventually Result In Banishing
Appetite and Gastronomio Comfort.
Nowhere do we need more change than
in our diet. The law that makes boiled
mutton days and rice pudding days of the
domestic calendar is the worst of laws.
Because it is easier for the cook to know
what to expect home from the market each
morning is no reasonable excuse for cling
ing to certain routine in food with the
regularity of n states prison or an aims
house. A united family is more to be re-
garded than one cook. Monotony il dry
rust upon interest in any branch of the
home, whether it is n matter of furnish
Ing, of diet or of toilet. If interest is gone
in the menu and one eats merely to salts
fly hunger, loss of appetite and dyspepsia
come to the fore. Nutritious food, well
cooked food and n variety in food are
three necessary adiuncts to gastronomic
comfort.
BY variety is not meant hero all the
products of large market Mt every meal.
The present elegant simplicity that has
weeded out the old tangled mass of side
dishes from tho national board is certain
ly more dainty and more nppetizing than
our former profusion. The question is
merely one of change. If we breakfast
upon croquettes today, the chief piece de
resistance tomorrow at the morning meal
should be as far as possible removed from
meat balls.
Next to daintiness in serving, mystery
is perhaps the most important factor in
forcing an appetite. The hungry man
who comes from business with his stom-
ach mortGaged to fricasseed chicken on
Monday night, roast beef on Tuesday
night and chops on Wednesday night eats
his dinner merely because he is Il hungry
man, but he of the tickle appetite is lured
ever hopefully to the dining room of the
wise housewife who never publishes her
bill of fare in advance. The not knowing
what is coming and an element of surprise
in what does come, if the food is in itself
desirable, will do more than anything else
can toward putting new life into lstless
| palate.
Don't serve too many sorts of things at
one time, as superabundance always
tends to nausea and reputation of tho
whole, but avoid as well that popular pit
fall, meagerness. And strive to find new
ways-good new ways-especially of cook
ing meat and of making desserts. Many
otherwise well regulated households vi
brate between eight or ten meat recipes
] ann u uOLcu VI UtSStTts, WHtTettS
both these numbers could easily be multi
piled by 100 toothsome changes. If house
keepers were as careful to exchange the
specialties of their several cooks as they
are to pass about their misdemeanors,
there would not be so many hungry men
stalking our streets-starved not from
want, but from monotony.
A laudable zeal in the gastronomic art
should not, however, lead the inexperi-
enced housekeeper too far afleld. A young
wife once tried newspaper recipe that
told her to use cupful of baking powder
and teaspoonful of sugar instead of the re-
verse. She obeyed faithfully, but some way
her husband didn't like the cake. If one
is not natural cook enough to tell from the
relative proportions given something about
how a mixture will turn out, it is best to
resort only to such dishes ms have been
stamped with reliable approval. But with
the vast number of carefully compiled
cookbooks, bursting with accurate infor-
nation, that now food the market the
families that allow themselves to dine
daily upon monotony are willfully shaving
their appetites.