Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1921-07-05
-Whar Has Be-
come of Amer
ican Cookery?
Can You. or Your Cook. Manage to
Turn Ont the Things Your
Grandmother and Her
Cook Could Mnke2

AYoT long ago, somebody lanenteu
IN the fact that oidfashioned
American cooking was disap-
pearing from the menus of the big
hotels and restaurants. He took this
fact to indicate that old-fashioued
American cooking was therefore dts
appearing from the face of the land
entirely.
Is this true7 Does the Individual
home go in for Continental cooking
as the hotels and restaurants dor
or course. there is a large part of
the American population that has
been recently transplanted from the
continent. Naturally they cook the
food of their forefathers, to large
extent. The cheaper lunch places
eater TO their taste in food and fur
nish dishes to their picked
FISH. sour cream. strange combina-
tions of macaroni. pastries that
neither negro nanny of the old
South nor a native girl of old New
England would have recognized.
Good Things 20 Adopt.
Equally. OF course, we have
adopted some of the Continental
dishes. some of the Continental food
tendencies-an to very good advau-
tage. Itaiy's contribution of maca-
roni TO our staples. Frances gift of
crisp-crusted rolls. the general Con
tinental habit OF dressing salads with
oil. the delicious and wholesome so
rallied Danish pastries things
are all good and weirome additions
20 our American diet. But where
there are not good bakeries. there
s-L
rolls. Macaront and. fortunately.
oil-dressed salads, have gone into
the home kitchen.
But Just how far ..~ls the invasion
81 foreign cookery gomez III wouIf
need long and painstaking researches
10 md out Doesn't the second-gen.
Grafton middle European in this
country eat as much ice cream as do
the descendants of jamestown and
fNvincetown first settlers7 Aren't
the grandchildren Of Italian and
Portuguese, Geek and Polish smmf-
grants as fond of cruIfers and pan
eanes AND Urup as are the grand
children OF American residents7
IL would be interesting to know
surely on a warm day all the ice
CREAM soda fountains in the country
arc dshed with business. and among
their patrons appear those Of an
sorts OF foreign blood And ia the
great war Americans OF recent for
eisn ancestry took cruiiers from the
Salvation Army girls quite as hun
Sriiy AZ did Americans of old descent.
Ho~ About YourseIf2
How about youraeifT
NJ
best of the American dishes OF old
reputcT Do you train your cooks to
do thfsr
foreign birth and training who can
give as some very good pointers
about cooking some particular dish.
But we shouldn't therefore lose track
OF the dishes that have proved suit
able for Americans for generations
Just because your Foolish cook
can make a bake chiefly consisting
of nuts and butter, don't fail to
teach her how to make good old
fashioned chocolate layer cake. Just
because your Hungarian rook can
make a delicious eyg nooSle. don't
fail TO teach her how to make plain.
cld-fashioned American apple pie.
other spot on the continent can roast
meat English fashion. don't fail TO
teach her to make smothered and
fried chicken in the Southern style
Don't let the ability to make English
pound cake or French rolls take the
place of an ability to make good New
England bread or Virginia corn
mullins.
Really al these old-fashioned
American good things of the table
are worth having on our own tables.
We may take what we like from
France. the mother OF good cookery.
, doubtless-but we should keep our
own best traditions in cookery. The
native American food has proved
that IL is wholesome and paiatahle.
OF course pie eaten too often is not
the best diet imaginable. though the
other day man made the statement
that as faster for q big pie bakery
he maintained health on a diet al
most exclusively confined TO this
delicacy. Crullers. pork and beans,
corn bread. ice cream soda, even
fried chicken. are not good in excess.
But nothing is good in excess, not
even bread and milk