The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1897-03-05
PRACTICAL COOKERY.
General Baker Discourses Upon the
Topic of Plain Every Day Cooking,
and Enters a Plea for Improvement
Thorasrp

and Enters Plea for Improvement
Therein.
Being recently in the company of
some ladies and gentlemen of excel
lent taste, the conversation turned on
cooking. Why is it generally, that
our every day cooking is done in such
an eXecrable manner? When we re-
fleet that we eat 365 BREAKFASTS wear.
and if we eat three times a day, we
eat more than one Thousand meals
during the time the earth revolves
once in it's orbit-we comprehend
what serious business this thing of
eating is. But when we consider the
effect of all this cooking upon health,
upon digestion, upon taste, upon
morals, upon domestic happiness, up-
on religion itself, we begin to appre-
ciate how largely good or bad cooking
enters into the whole economy of hui
man life. l do not propose to take in
TO consideration fancy" cooking, but
the plain every day cookery by means
OF which we expect to live and have
our physical being, including some
reasonab BILE social enjoyment. think
man would rather shave with dull
| razor than have Wretched breakfast.
If he leaves home with a good break
fast under his belt, he is quite apt to
have good day of it; to make a good
speech for his client, good sale of
his goods, TO plough deeper and bet
ter and to better work for his en-
ployer; the judge will make better
decisions and the matchmaker give
you al honest job. The clergyman
with a nasty breakfast in his stomach
on Sunday morning is better prepared
to depict the pains or perdition than
to paint the joys of Heaven. 1t has
often been said that trifies make I'D
the sum of human happiness. In
nothing is this more true than in the
detail Of common, every day cookery.
The woman rWhO disdains attention
to these details, is lost soul. 1t is
worthy Of scientific pride and the
most eminent philosophy, to be able
to cook potato so that it will be
relished with keenness. There are a
dozen ways of cooking potatoes to
make them deliciously edible. | have
heard of woman in Blue Earth
county who puts her potatoes on the
table plain boiled every day in the
year except Christmas. She will get
her hair frizzed in the next world. 1t
is enough to make Sir Walter Raleigh
turn over in his grave the way this
noblest of esculents is generally
cooked. Then there is bread, the
most healthful and nourishing of all
foods if properly made. The woman
who can and will uniformly make
good bread for her family, is worthy
of fine linen, purple and pearls. St.
John should have given to such a
woman place among the angels he
saw at PatmOs. The young lady who
effects to despise the high art of the
making of good bread rejects the
strongest card she can possibly play
in the game of life.
We venture the opinion that it was
good bread that Christ made for the
four thousand that day on the banks
of the sea of Galilee. A good house
wife ought to be willing to try to
initiate her Master and set good bread
before her family. There are many
young girls vaunt their skill in pies,
angel cake and stuff of that sort. But
it is bread which is the ''staff of life"
If you can't make good bread young
lady, all your fancy cooking is but as
sounding brass and tinkling
cymbal. Bread is the mighty base of
the pyramid of cookery. Good bread
and good butter is food too good for
kings, but just right for true, honest
and patriotic American citizen.
The general manner in which meats
are cooked is absolutely beastly.
Meats, even in good families, are put
on the table as if intended for paupers
and criminals. 1t is easy enough to
make the preparation and cooking of
meats both wholesome and palatable
if care is but exercised. In so many
families of pretension everything
seems to receive the highest atten-
tion but the culinary art Even books
upon cooking are generally devoted to
the preparation of refined and fancy
dishes, and omit to throw light upon
the preparation Of food for every day
practical life.
Take coffee for instance, the COM
monest beverage upon an American
table. What waste of that noble
berry is made every morning upon
hundreds of thousands of breakfast
tables? Its flavor, its strength and
it's clearness are almost totally wasted.
1t requires attention to the roasting
and the prindinp Of the bean and tO