The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-12-09
TEACHING PLAIN COOKING.

Leslie's Weekly.

LeslieS Weekly.
1t is gratifying to be informed, as we are
through an educational bulletin, that pro-
vision is being made in a large number
of public schools throughout the United
States for the teaching of cookery to girls.
a course of training of this kind has been
introduced in the Chicago Institute, which
opened its fall session last month. The
Household Economic Association, of which
many branches now exist, is given credit
for this valuable adjunct to the schools
We do not believe that any other feature
or department of industrial training for
girls will yield such large n immediate
results for good as this. We are only be-
ginning to realize how large and important
a factor in the life of a people is whole
some, nutritious and properly prepared
food; how much their welfare, physical,
moral and spiritual, depends upon it.
This is true Of all classes, and especially
of those who through poverty or other rea-
sons are compelled to subsist upon a limited
number Of food products. or are unable to
command the services OF skilled labor in
the kitchen. 1t is a recognized fact that
much of the discomfort, misery and disease
and even the vice which help to make ex-
istence itself in the tenements of our cities
an intolerabie burden for many, is due to
the ~wretched, repulsive and unwholesome
stuff which often passes for food on the
tables of these people. The trouble is not
so often with the quantity, or even the
quality of the articles, as they are bought
in the market; it is the way they are pre-
I1A u III AAAC ~ AL1 OAAAC Oh - AAOI-
ant OF the simplest rules of proper cook
ing. OF knowing how to make the most and
the best of the few things they have, and
the consequence is that the food is put on
the tabl i'm a shape that deies digestion
and appeals only to a hardened and de-
PRAYED appetite.
Several New York physicians have de-
clared recently that the fearful mortality
among children in the tenement districts
is largely due to the wretched, unfit and
indigestible food which they are compelled
TO eat. An instance is given where a
young mother was found feeding a sick i'm
FAINT with melon rinds and the dregs of
beer. Many other infants, it was said, were
fed upon such things as corned beef and
cabbage, cooked in grease.
1t is obvious enough that any system of
public instruction having for its specific
object the teaching of the plain and simple
principles OF hygienic and wholesome cook
ing Will so far toward mitigating the woes
and perils OF existence not only for chill
dren but for the older people in many poor
homes. Far better this instruction thar
much which finds a place in the curriculum
of the common schools. Many a young girl
might far better, for the sake OF her own
peace and happiness and the joy of those
around her, remain ignorant as 10 cube
root and the isothermal lines, if need be, in
order III she might become wise i'm the art
OF knowing how to prepare a simple meal
and TO set a table in a way that would be q
pleasure to the eye and a source of real and
wholesome satisfaction to the appetite. A
reform movement of enormous possibilities
for good TO the whole human race lies
along this line of endeavor.