The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1915-11-30
Cooking.
Bx JOHN 10. nanny.

By JOHN ID. BARRY.
young married man recently astonshed me
by saying: "Why don't you write something about
cookingi"
When l had recovered my balance and had
perceived that he was serious, l said: swell, I
+ ought to know at least something about the sub
jects deal with in print"
In spite of my fippaney he persisted. cts a
very important matter" he said. sand it's mat
ter that has caused good many young husbands
like myself considerable concern. Now, take my
case, for example. For dozen years before l
married | lived in restaurants. / got so sick Of
restaurants that even now ! hate to go into one.
When married expected to have comfortable
home. 1t is comfortable in every respect but one.
/ love my wife and get on first rate together
But she capt cook!" g..
But oyur wife can learn to cook, can't she?"
l said There cooking schools"
aft there are" he went on 81 don't know about
them. Now, in Philadelphia, where l came from.
there plenty of such schools all the city.
But that isn't the point l want to make" he con-
! tinued doggedly. at is this; Cooking ought to
be taught to the girls in the public schools. In
most cases it is going to be one of the most I'M
portant kinds of work they will have to do in
life Now my wife is perfectly willing to cook.
She even likes cooking. But she tried to acquire
| it too late. When | married her she stenog-
rapher and she had never done any cooking in her
| life | earn enough money to keep table sup
piled with good, wholesome food, but | don't
earn enough to throw food away. When l buy
a porterhouse steak costing 90 cents the chances
arc that before it reaches the table it will be
spoiled Naturally, experience OF this sort
doesn't improve the temper OF either of The
first year it is possible to live on love; but after
the first year it is necessary to have food"
After this talk | made inquiries | discovered
that there cooking schools here not many,
to be sure, but few. | also learned that in some
OF the public schools usually the high schools,
and in the manual training schools, there were
courses in cooking But it plain that the
young husband had some ground for his COM
plant and that he called attention to crying
need. One woman told me she had been amazed
to discover that many young girls, able to earn a
good living before marriage, seemed helpless when
they married and faced the problems of house
keeping. In many cases they resented having to
do cooking. Naturally, this attitude Of mind did
not help to make them good cooks. There is no
doubt" she said that girls possess a gift
for cooking. Other girls do not. But with a
little training all girls acquire skill enough
to enable them TO cook wholesome food in a
Wholesome way. It's matter that ought not to
ibe left to the high schools to the manual
training schools Instructions should begin when
the children still in the earlier grades. The
work is more difficult than much of the work
now required OF children long before they reach
the high schools"
II The best cooks that | know arc so expert that
they scorn rules OF cooking. They even despise
cook books. They to cook instinctively II
another asks them how they have pro-
lduced dish that is particularly good have no
ticcd that they often can't tell you with exact
ness They apparently know just what ingredients
to and in just what quantity. But hi kn On !!
ledge seems to be varying knowledge, depending
largely on mood
These, I suppose. arc tho gcniuses among
cooks Like all they above rules
/ Besides. in finding wife. who ever heard OF
making his choice because she had genius
for cooking?
i "Thc way TO mans heart is his stomach is
an adagc that seldom applies TO our present ante
matrimonial conditions.
But it is adagc that ought to be taken very
, seriously after natrlmony.
| II the wives OF men with small incomes pos
sess no special aptitude for cooking would
imagine that cook book would be invaluable.
And surely, constant practice ought i'll time to
give facility. SO | wonder If the failure in this
direction OF many wives docs not go a little
deeper than failure in this particular kind OF work.
is it not related to the growing inability OF human
beings to their hands?
Long ago the advocates of manual training
showed the danger in this weakness. Working
against Odds they strovc to introduce manual
training into the schools and to establish schools
directly the principle OF the importance Of
manual training. Many failures in cooking are
Iunqucstionably due, least in part, manual in
ness persists is that has ceased to be discredt-
able.
| Nowadays people often 90 so far as to boast
LOT not being able to do things Skillfully with
their hands. The implication is. OF course, that
they arc more skillful with their heads. But the
hands express the head exactly in every kind
of expertucss and inexpertness Moreover il is
largely by the hands that most OF the fundamen-
tai work of the world is done.
i There can't be work OF much greater funda-
mental Importance than the preparation OF the
food which helps us to sustain life.
i Once, when life simple il was Compare
lively easy for people TO know what to cook and
how to cook it. But as civilization grew more
advanced cooking became more complicated more
difficult and more dangerous. Lately we have
discovered that much of the cooked food We cat
lis poison. Some Of the very dishes that the old
fashioned mother used to make, delicious to the
taste, highly appetizing, were poisonous dishes In
the country, districts of New England great deal
Iof the sickness that used to prevail there now
be traced to cooking, formerly believed to be good
and known to be bad cooking.
For many years physiology has been one
of the studies in the public schools. But in con-
nection with this important subject there has been
very little said about the food put into the body
This matter ought to be closely associated with
the teaching of girls Whether they become cooks
themselves or whether thcy become emDIoyerS nj