PART III.

REMARKS.

The first principle of diet is that the stomach should not be asked to receive more than it can digest; and the second, that the food should be suitable to each person’s digestion. We are very tyrannical to our stomachs, and they, in their turn, generally retaliate upon us sooner or later. If a certain form of diet agrees with one individual, it is no absolute rule that it should suit our neighbour; but we too often insist on feeding others according to what we imagine agrees with ourselves. Especially is this the case with children’s diet, and few grown-up people make allowance for the healthy appetite of girls or boys who are still growing, or understand how much food-material the rapidly-expanding frame requires.

My own firm conviction is that no schoolboy ever gets as much nourishing food as he requires, and that is the secret why boys of fourteen or fifteen years old scarcely ever look anything but thin and pinched. The general remark is, “Oh, they are growing so fast!” So they are, and that is the exact reason why their food should be particularly nourishing, more so than at any other time of their lives. Instead of that, an English schoolboy gets _two_ slops and only _one_ nourishing meal a day, during the years of his life when he requires the greatest amount of nutritive food. Think of the actual force-producers contained in a schoolboy’s breakfast and tea (or supper), and think of the amount of exercise his restless young limbs will take or have taken in the course of the day. After a game of football or cricket, or a paper-chase, a boy sits down generally—I might almost say invariably—to a meal of weak tea, skim milk, bread, and perhaps cheese or a little butter. I am not, of course, speaking of cheap schools. When a person undertakes to feed and teach and board a boy for a sum between 20_l._ and 50_l._, or even more, it is well-nigh impossible, at the present scale of prices, to give him better, or even as good food as what I have described; but it does appear to me a shame that at the more expensive schools to which boys are sent by parents of fairly good means, the scale of diet should be kept so low, and the proportion of really nutritive food so small. Perhaps the only exceptions to this rule are to be found in the liberal tables of some of our best public schools, but even there the boys, without being absolutely starved, do not get enough to eat, and two meals out of the three will probably contain insufficient nourishment. In girls’ schools, I fancy, this evil is still more decided, and a poor diet whilst a child is growing rapidly is the root of delicate constitutions, feeble frames, and general “breaking down” at the outset of life.

There should also be the greatest imaginable difference in diet between different classes of workers; for although a certain section of the community monopolizes to itself the honourable title of _the_ “Working Class,” the term embraces many more thousands than the labouring man imagines. The popular idea, for instance, among the poor and ignorant masses who work for their daily bread, is that the Lady who rules over this country leads a blissful life of idleness, seated on her throne all day, orb and sceptre in hand, and gazing placidly before her into space. Now, I believe it to be a fact that few people in all Her wide dominions work really harder, in every sense of the word, than our dear and good Queen. At the head of the workers her Majesty may well claim to take her place, and then will come a crowd of men and women who wear good clothes and live in fine, or at all events decent, houses, and yet work absolutely harder, all the year round, than any day labourer in the Midland Counties.

The diet for work of this nature must necessarily be very different to that required by the man who exercises his muscles in the open air, and whose appetite and digestion possess far larger capacities of receiving and assimilating food than those of the poor brain worker who uses up his life-power at a much quicker rate. The absence of fresh air, and the want therefore of constantly renewed supplies of oxygen to the blood through the lungs, prevent the man who works indoors with his head or his hands from feeling so hungry, yet the exhaustion of his nervous system demands as urgently that it should be renewed by means of food. At the same time the digestion of such a one is weaker, and cannot manage gross substances. For these workers, then, a diet where the cooking is so perfect, however simple it may be, that there shall be as little strain as possible thrown upon the gastric juices, is of the first importance. To brain-workers albumen is even more necessary than fibrine, and raw eggs afford this in its purest form. There is a popular fallacy that eggs beaten up in milk are rendered doubly nourishing, but if the egg be fresh and good the combination is rather more fitted to hinder than to promote digestion. It would be better to beat the egg up in a little brandy or wine, and wine is the best. Fibrine, in the form of meat, should be sparingly used by those who live by their brains, and the meat should be of the best quality, and always very well and delicately cooked. Fish supplies most easily the phosphorus which is needed by such a system, and good pure milk and cream are also very essential articles of diet.

But to the man who exercises his muscles in the open air a very different regimen must be prescribed. The labourer instinctively stops the gaps between his scanty meals with cheese, which is the best thing for him, and he enriches his poor diet of potatoes with bacon. Some day, when his wife has learned how to make the most of every scrap of meat, he ought to be able to vary his food with a good drop of warm nourishing broth. If only he could be persuaded to diminish his beer and increase his allowance of meat, he would find himself in a far better condition for work.

The diet of our soldiers, and even of our sailors, appears to me—in spite of tables showing the proportions of flesh-formers and starch, of gluten, and heaven knows what, swallowed daily by every soldier—to be really insufficient for a healthy man with a good appetite. They may be supplied with food enough to prevent anything like actual starvation, and even to keep them in some sort of condition, but I question whether a British soldier ever knows what it is to feel thoroughly satisfied after his meals for one whole day. It is just possible, is it not, that the men would be easier kept away from the canteen if they had as much as they could eat? Tables of food-proportions are very well in their way, but I know that I have seen working men in New Zealand, and growing boys of eighteen and twenty years old in colonies where meat was cheap, consume fibrine—or, in other words, eat plain roast meat—in quantities which would soon leave the most liberal military dietary several pounds behind.

It is not at all certain that, in spite of danger and discomforts, our soldiers do not really fare better abroad, or in time of war, than at home in peace. In the face of a national excitement we are not so very particular as to the number of ounces of meat to be dealt out to the men who have to stand between us and ruin, so the soldier has then a better chance of occasionally getting as much as he can eat. If he could cook his own food, he would be still better off; and anyone who saw those good-looking German soldiers cooking their rations in the little tent behind the School of Cookery last summer, must remember how deftly they set about their preparations, and how savoury was the result of a pea-sausage and a bone or two. No doubt every year brings its improvements in these matters, and if a soldier who fought under Marlborough could see the rations and barrack accommodation of his modern brethren-in-arms, he would indeed think they had nothing to complain of in the way of food and shelter. But still there is ample room for improvement, and I would endorse the suggestion often made before, that the British soldier be taught to cook, and to make the most of his rations by such cooking. Each man might take it in turn to try his hand over the fire, and there might be some regimental emulation in the form of small prizes for clever contrivances to vary the food, and so forth.

I am aware that the food is not nearly so monotonous as it used to be a short time since, when all the meat eaten by soldiers was invariably boiled; but still I question whether the mess dinner of the rank and file is anything like so savoury and palatable as the dinner to be had a few years ago in Paris, at one Madame Roland’s, near the Marché des Innocents. For twopence she gave you cabbage soup with a slice of _bouilli_ (beef) in it, a large piece of excellent bread, and a glass of wine, which it must be admitted, however, was rather thin. Some 600 workmen used to throng daily round her table in a shed, and yet she calculated that she gained a farthing by each guest. In Glasgow, Manchester, and elsewhere, similar public dining places have been established on the cheapest possible scale, and found to answer very well; but although a workman may be able to get a fairly good and nutritive dinner at such an institution, it is not the less necessary that his wife should know how to cook his food decently for him at home.

LESSON IX. BOILING AND STEWING.

There is all the difference in the world between boiling meat which is to be eaten, and meat whose juices are to be extracted in the form of soup. If the meat is required as nourishment, of course you want the juices kept in. To do this it is necessary to plunge it into boiling water, which will cause the albumen in the meat to coagulate suddenly, and act as a plug or stopper to all the tubes of the meat, so that the nourishment will be tightly kept in. The temperature of the water should be kept at boiling-point for five minutes, and then as much cold water must be added as will reduce the temperature to 165°. If the whole be kept at this temperature for some hours, you have all the conditions united which give to the flesh the quality best adapted for its use as food. The juices are kept in the meat, and instead of being called upon to consume an insipid mass of indigestible fibres, we have a tender piece of meat, from which, when cut, the imprisoned juices run freely. If the meat be allowed to remain in the boiling water without the addition of any cold to it, it becomes in a short time altogether cooked, but it will be as hard as iron, and utterly indigestible, and therefore unwholesome.

If soup is to be made out of meat, then it stands to reason we want all the juices which we can possibly extract from the meat to mix with the water. Therefore the meat should be put into _cold_ water, with a little salt and a few vegetables (if in a poor family a few crusts of bread may be added at the last minute), and allowed to simmer as long as possible. It is undoubtedly the most economical form of nourishment which exists, and it is an absurd prejudice to suppose that the same amount of meat is invariably more valuable to the human system if it be frizzled in a greasy frying-pan, so that it becomes burnt outside but remains raw within, and eaten in this state as “good solid food,” dear to the heart (but surely not to the stomach) of a true Englishman. In the first place, even a pound of meat will only feed one person in a solid form, whereas, if to exactly the same weight of meat be added a pint of cold water, a few vegetables, or even herbs, a couple of potatoes, a bone or two, a scrap of bacon, an onion—almost anything which comes handy—we have at once the _pot-au-feu_ of the French peasant, and produce a warm, savoury, wholesome meal for two or three persons. It may be as well to mention that the scum which rises on the top of the water whilst meat is boiling is _always_ useless and unwholesome, and should be got rid of as completely as possible. The way to help this scum to rise, so as to be able to get rid of it, is to keep pouring in a little cold water from time to time. This will always have the effect of sending up some of the obnoxious substance to the top, from whence it should speedily be removed.

Stewing occupies a sort of middle position between roasting and boiling, and must be carefully attended to, if the meat is not to be hardened instead of softened by the process. It is desirable to dip meat into boiling water for stewing as well as boiling, unless indeed it should have been soaked before. What, for instance, makes hashed mutton a byword of nastiness? Because an ignorant cook plunges her chunks of cold meat into a greasy gravy when it is at boiling-point, thereby thoroughly and hopelessly hardening the meat, and then serves up the mess with large pieces of half-toasted bread. Now, is this way more extravagant? I can answer for its being more palatable. Make a nice little gravy of any cold stock—and a good cook will _always_ have a small basin or cup full of stock by her—add an onion finely shredded and fried, a little pepper and salt, and, if it is to be had, a teaspoonful of ketchup. Let the mixture come to boiling-point, without boiling over, and strain it into another saucepan. If you have only one saucepan, strain it into a basin, quickly clean out your saucepan, and pour the gravy back into it, setting it aside to let it get nearly quite cold. _Then_, and not until then, lay in thinly-cut, small slices of the cold meat, and let the gravy and the meat warm thoroughly and gradually together, _without_ boiling, but don’t allow it to stew too long. Whilst it is getting ready, have the frying-pan ready with a little boiling fat (not that which fish has been fried in, remember), and put into it some small, thin, three-cornered pieces of bread, which will quickly fry into a crisp toast. Serve these round the hash, which, by the way, should not be swamped in gravy, and I can answer that a certain cockney millionaire friend of mine will no longer issue this solemn warning to his family: “Never eat ’ashes away from ’ome.”

But to return to stewing. If it be properly understood and practised, stewed meat makes a very agreeable and palatable change from the monotonous boiling and roasting which alternate on the middle-class daily bill of fare. A shoulder of mutton stewed, Indian fashion, with a handful of well-washed rice, a few Sultana raisins, half a dozen cloves, and a teaspoonful of currie powder to flavour it, makes an agreeable change. Some meats are far more wholesome also when stewed than when roast; as veal, for instance, and many kinds of fish. Eels are invariably more wholesome stewed than boiled—though _all_ fish is wholesomer boiled than fried, for stewing is a more gradual process than boiling, and the fat is more surely got rid of. If it should ever be necessary to cook a beefsteak which has not yet had time to become tender by keeping, then, for the sake of the digestion of the family, it would be better to stew it, and this is the way it should be done.

The meat should first be cut into convenient, but large-sized pieces (all the fat having been removed) and lightly fried on both sides in butter or clarified dripping. This will make it of a nice brown colour, and prevent the pale flabby appearance it would otherwise present. Then get a saucepan and put the meat into it, with a little sliced onion, turnips and carrots (which are also improved by being half-fried first), pepper and salt, and a teaspoonful of any sauce you prefer. If there is any stock, add it, but if not, put in about half a pint of water, and let it all simmer very gently for two or three hours. At the last moment skim it well, for it is odious if it be greasy; stir in a few pinches of flour to thicken the gravy, and let it all boil up together for a couple of minutes before serving. Some people are very fond of fat with all their food, though they should bear in mind that fat affords no nourishment whatever to the human body. It merely goes to make fat. A stout person should therefore not eat much fat, and a thin one should. The function of fat, as we all know, is like starch or sugar, to keep up the heat of the animal, and a certain proportion is even present in healthy animal muscle; so it does not do to buy lean meat, although all the fat on the joint need not be sent up to table. However, it is necessary to serve a certain portion of fat with stewed steak, but do not let it stew _with_ the meat, for it will only melt and rise to the surface in the scum which has to be so carefully removed. Rather keep the fat till the last moment, cut it into little pieces a couple of inches long, and put it by itself in the frying-pan or on a gridiron for a minute or two just to cook it, and serve it in golden brown nodules on the top of the stewed meat.

_All_ nice cooking—be its materials ever so simple—is more or less troublesome; but I have always found (and the experience of others bears out my own) that bad cooks will take quite as much trouble to spoil food. It is therefore a great pity that when a woman is conscious of her own deficiencies and is anxious and willing to improve by learning, she should not have the opportunity of doing so. But unfortunately cooking is not to be learned from a book, nor from a lecture. It is an art in which practical experience, supplementing theoretical information, alone can be of any use. It is doubtless a great advantage to intelligent beginners to have the why and wherefore of everything explained to them either by voice or page, but it is equally necessary for them to see with their own eyes and try with their own hands the result of these instructions, for half-an-hour’s practice is worth a week’s theorizing, in cooking as well as in other things.

LESSON X. BAKING, ROASTING, AND FRYING.

The same principle which has been advocated in boiling holds good with regard to roasting. If you wish to retain all the juices in the meat, place it close to the fire for five minutes _at first_, and then remove it to a greater distance until the last five minutes, when it should be brought near the fire again. It is possible, by this method, to roast a joint thoroughly, so that it shall be perfectly well cooked, and yet, when carved, the imprisoned juices shall flow out readily. All meat ought to be well floured and sprinkled with a pinch or two of salt before putting it to the fire, and it should be kept constantly basted with clear dripping. Some things, such as hare, are better basted with milk; and poultry, or any very small joint, is much improved by being covered with lard or oiled paper. Instead of larding game or poultry, it is often preferable to _bard_ it, _i.e._ to cover the breast with a thin slice of fat bacon, which may be served up with it as with quails.

We must remember that the object in cooking is to present meat, and indeed all food, to the palate in an agreeable form without changing its composition more than we can help, or losing its nutritive value. Raw meat, quite apart from other objections, is so tough that it would be impossible to masticate or digest enough of it to satisfy hunger, whereas the application of heat is intended to force the juices to expand, thus separating the fibres and making mastication easy and pleasant.

The loss of weight in roasting, especially if the joint be a fat one, is very considerable. As much as 4 lb. 4 oz. have been lost in roasting a joint of 15 lbs. weight in the ordinary manner. Although meat actually loses more of its weight by roasting than by boiling, yet, if no account be taken of the matters extracted, it contains, when roasted, a larger proportion of nutritive elements than the larger mass of boiled meat, and in a given weight is more nutritious. Meat is often baked, and though this method maybe harmless and agreeable as a change, it is not such a wholesome form of cooking as roasting.

The primitive manner of baking meat is the only one which ensures it from becoming dry and tasteless, namely, to enclose it in a crust of some sort. The gipsies to this day bake their meat and poultry—we will not inquire how this latter item is added to the bill of fare—in a sort of mud mould or case, covering up feathers and all; and the Indians and Maoris generally cook in the same way. A fowl, or a piece of meat of any sort, is delicious when enclosed in a flour-and-water case—dough, in fact—and baked in the embers of a camp fire. If the meat were put in the fire without this protection, it would simply get burnt.

Frying is the simplest, the commonest, and, if properly done, the wholesomest form of cooking food, but it is perhaps the least understood, and more often results in burning the outside of the meat whilst the inside is left raw. To begin with, a clear, smokeless fire is indispensable for frying, and it is equally necessary to have a perfectly clean frying-pan. Of course the best oil, or the best fresh butter, would offer the most perfect conditions of the fat in which anything should be fried; but good, pure, clear fat, and clarified dripping, make capital substitutes. Cold meat is excellent when lightly fried and served up with yesterday’s vegetables and potatoes (also cut up and fried), but the excellence depends entirely on the delicate yet savoury flavouring, the clearness of the fire, and the goodness of the fat in which the frying process is carried on. It is also very important that the fat should be actually boiling. Here again we are met by prejudice, for ninety-nine cooks out of a hundred will allege that they are “respectable women” when asked to use a frimometer or a thermometer, and prefer to go on ascertaining the temperature of their fat by guesswork or by means of a sprig of parsley. It is more economical to roast the flesh of young animals, such as lamb, chicken, veal, or pork, because such flesh contains an undue proportion of albumen and gelatine in the tissues, and these substances will to a great extent be lost in the boiling.

If I had to cook a dish of cutlets and potatoes, or a tender rump-steak and potatoes, this is the way I should do it, or, to speak quite truthfully, those are the directions I should give for its being done. First, I must say that whenever it is practicable to use a gridiron in the place of a frying-pan, and to broil meat instead of frying, it should be done. But, at the same time, I _have_ tasted such excellent cutlets served out of a frying-pan, that it shows it is not an invariable rule. It is the attention to small details which makes all the difference in nice cooking, and if persons thoroughly understand the value of these important trifles, they learn to do the thing always that way, and so it becomes no more trouble to them than is the slatternly method which results in grease and cinders, heartburn and disgust. Well, then, let us imagine that we are rich enough to possess a frying-pan _and_ a gridiron, and that our fire, however small, is clear and bright, without a film of smoke, for it is of no use trying to fry or broil unless the fire is in a proper condition. In spite of what has been said in a former place about cooking potatoes in their skins, potatoes for frying must needs be peeled, well washed, and cut rapidly up with a sharp knife into thin slices. Again, they should be thrown into a basin of water for a moment, and then laid on a clean cloth, slice by slice, to be thoroughly dried. All this time the nice, clear fat should have been melting on the fire, and when it is actually boiling throw in the potatoes, keeping the frying-pan frequently moving so that they shall not stick to its bottom. A couple or three minutes ought to crisp them to a beautiful golden brown colour; then skim them swiftly out of the boiling fat, throw them into a large, fine wire sieve (which would be all the better for having been warmed to receive them), sprinkle a pinch of salt over them, and turn them into a very hot dish, every particle of fat having been left behind in the sieve. Although the potatoes have been mentioned first, the meat should really have preceded them in the order of cooking, as it is the easiest to keep hot. If you are going to have cutlets, trim them from the best end of a neck of mutton very neatly. There is no occasion to throw away the scraps; they should either go into the stockpot, or, if strict economy be necessary, they may afterwards be made into a pudding or pie. The chine-bone must be sawn off, and the seven or eight chops (which are all you will be able to get off a moderate-sized neck of mutton) neatly pared, and only about an inch of bare bone left to each cutlet for a handle. The cutlets should then be sprinkled with a little salt and pepper, and laid for a moment in a dish of oil; then put them on the gridiron, or into the frying-pan, but in this latter case add a little more oil, and broil or fry them for six or seven minutes. They ought by that time to be nicely done, and should be served hot. Beefsteak can be cooked exactly in the same way, only from its larger size the gridiron is more strictly indispensable. A frying-pan is a very serviceable implement in the hands of a skilful manager. I trust she will make it a point of keeping it scrupulously clean, and then she can serve up the cold vegetables left from yesterday in this fashion at a moment’s notice. Melt a little fat or butter in your frying-pan, shred an onion into it with a spoonful of chopped parsley, a little salt and pepper, and a sprig of any savoury herb or bit of lemon-peel which comes handy. Then cut up the vegetables—cabbage, turnips, carrots, and so forth—into small pieces, and fry the whole, lightly tossing the contents of your frying-pan all the time, so that they may not get into a burnt fat-soaked mass. On a sudden call for a late supper, such a dish as this forms a capital addition to the cold meat or fried bacon and eggs.

Of all the uses, however, to which a housewife turns her frying-pan, I suppose an omelet is the least in demand, and yet it is at once the cheapest and easiest way in the world to cook eggs with other things. All it requires is vigilance and knack. Don’t _over_-beat your eggs, just whisk them up (three are quite enough for a manageable omelet), whites and all, lightly and swiftly, beat in with them a pinch of salt, a little pepper, some finely-chopped parsley, or a teaspoonful of grated cheese, or shredded bacon, or even shredded fish; almost anything mixes well in an omelet, provided it is cut fine enough. Have the frying-pan ready on the fire with butter enough in it to fairly cover its surface when melted, which it should do without browning. Into this clear liquid butter pour the contents of your basin (your eggs, &c.), holding the frying-pan with the left hand, and gently stirring the mixture with a wooden spoon in the other. The omelet will set almost immediately, and then the stirring should be discontinued, and the gentle shaking carried on _incessantly_: the edges being lightly turned up with the wooden spoon every now and then. If you turn your head, or cease shaking for a moment, the omelet will be spoiled. Four minutes should be quite enough to cook the inside thoroughly, and yet leave the outside of a rich, yellowish-brown colour, but the time required to attain this result will entirely depend on the fire. Too fierce a fire will burn the omelet before it has had time to set or become thoroughly cooked, and yet a clear brisk fire is necessary. As soon as it begins to assume the shape of a small plate and the colour of a golden pippin, take your wooden spoon once more and dexterously double it over, serve it in an exceedingly hot dish, and eat it whilst it is still sputtering and frothing. The only things requisite in an omelet are, presence of mind and promptness of action. Timidity and hesitation have ruined many an omelet, and it is better to practise as often as may be necessary, before serving up a failure.

In fritters, the yolks of the eggs and the dissolved butter are beaten into a batter, and the slices of fruit, previously dipped in finely-powdered sugar, dropped into the mixture, to which, by the way, the well-whisked whites of the eggs must be added at the last moment. Then the slices of fruit, with the batter adhering to them, may be placed in the buttered frying-pan for a moment or two just to get lightly cooked, and the pan should be kept well shaken during the process.

LESSON XI. BACON.

American bacon is considerably lower in price than English bacon, but it shrinks more when boiled, and you can get a larger number of slices from a given weight of English bacon than can be obtained from the other. Pork is the great stand-by of the poor man’s dietary, by reason of its strong flavour as well as its low price, and the relish it affords to monotonous and insipid fare. The dripping from fried bacon is often preferred by children to the rancid stuff sold as butter to the poor; and in any case the fat from bacon is more palatable with cabbage or potatoes than the suet of either beef or mutton could possibly be. It is easier to carry when cold into the fields; and another great advantage of bacon is that it requires less fire to cook it, and fewer utensils. From a scientific point of view, a diet in which bacon is the principal meat, needs to be largely supplemented by milk and other highly nitrogenous food, for it contains very little nitrogen itself, and we know that nitrogen is of great importance to the blood. Bacon supplies a fair amount of carbon, and does not therefore require the aid of bread. With the addition of a little pea-meal, the liquor in which bacon has been boiled makes a good soup, and it would be improved both in flavour and nutritive value by a few potatoes and an onion being boiled in it.

But as a general rule, however valuable the pig may be in an economical sense, it is quite certain that pork is less wholesome than almost any other meat. For the reasons why this should be so, we must go in the first place to the habits and ways of the animal itself, its absence of any guiding instinct about food—for quantity, not quality, appears to be the first principle of a pig’s diet—and the motionless life it leads. Pigs which are turned out in a field run about too much to grow fat, and therefore, if it be necessary to use the animal for food, it is speedily relegated to its sty. There it never does anything except sleep and eat, and this want of exercise tells not only on the inordinate growth of fat which is laid up outside the body, but upon the muscles and fibres of the flesh, which become hard and indigestible. The pig stores up in its body three times more of its food than the ox, and from its large proportion of fat is not of equal value with beef or mutton in nourishing the system of those who need to make much muscular exertion. The leg of pork is the part of the body which, if deprived of its large proportion of fat, approaches the most nearly to the nourishing elements of beef or mutton. However, I do not for a moment expect that any scientific theories for or against pork will have any ill effect on the keeping of pigs or the curing of bacon. Happy is the family which can keep a pig; therefore, what does it matter whether it be a “highly nitrogenous food” or not? Piggy pays the rent, and furnishes the “childer” with many a savoury bite besides. In fact, if any food can, in these high-priced days, be called economic, bacon deserves the name, for it goes further than any other meat. My remarks, therefore, must be taken to apply only to those who have a choice, and who therefore should use it more as a relish than as the principal ingredient in the family bill of fare.

LESSON XII. THE GIST OF THE WHOLE MATTER.

Now let us sum up what we have been trying to teach and to learn in this little book. To begin with, we will run through the first part, which is perhaps rather alarming on account of its hard words, and see what has been said.

No one will deny the importance of urging rich and poor alike, in the present state of things, to try and economize the fuel and food which they may have at their disposal. When I use the word economize, and apply it to rich people, I mean it to bear a wider significance than when I speak of the very poor, with whom it is an absolute necessity. It is just because there is not this absolute necessity on the score of expenditure, that a due attention to the principles of economy in food and fuel sits so gracefully on a rich person. I do not mean that only two fires should be lighted in a splendid mansion, or that its inmates should gather every day around a dinner of bonesoup or a lunch of bread and cheese. That would of course be absurd nonsense, and no one is so short-sighted as not to perceive that such economy would starve a good many thousand people in other grades of life. What I mean is, that in all households, beginning with those costly establishments where the duty devolves on a steward or housekeeper, there should be such arrangements, such training, such recognized principles, that the possibility of _waste_ should be reduced to the lowest point. Everyone will acknowledge that in what are called “great kitchens,” the “waste,”—the broken victuals, scraps, crusts, bones, and so forth—would feed many a poor and hungry family. All I say, then, is: “Let it feed such families: don’t let it be thrown away, or sold as refuse.” When we have made the most of everything, there will still be quite enough refuse in the world, without adding to it portions of food which would be a boon and a blessing to a starving child. The same with fuel. Let people who can afford to pay for coals have as many fires as they choose, but let them take care that the coals are fairly used and made the most of, cinders and all, so will there be more left in the market for those to whom a hundredweight of coal is of more importance than is a ton to a rich man. Let such people have grates and stoves, and all the new inventions for the economy of fuel, and then, if everybody makes a conscience of being careful with their coals—economical without being stingy, but insisting on every cinder being duly used, or even given away, instead of finding its way into the dusthole—we shall not perhaps have constant alarms of scarcity and famine prices.

So much can rich people do to help; but those in the lower grades of society can do a great deal more; and I am persuaded that the chief reason a great deal more is not done is because people don’t know how to do it. The mistress of a middle-class household considers that she fulfils the whole duties of her position by giving a few languid orders to her servants, which they obey or not, according to their several dispositions. By all means let her confine herself to this feeble style of housekeeping until she knows _how_ the things should be done, for until then it is better she should not interfere. If everything was exactly as it should be, if cooks knew not only how to lay and light fires, but to cook exquisitely, it would be very delightful, and we might all live happy ever after. But, unfortunately, we seem to be a long way from such a desirable state of things; and complaints of the bad, and an outcry for good, servants grow louder every year. Now, it appears to me that good mistresses are just as much needed as good servants, mistresses who are capable of explaining kindly and clearly to a servant how and why their duties—or such portion of their duties as they are ignorant of—should be performed. Explanation is a good deal better than scolding, and the practical knowledge from which such explanations should spring is quite compatible with the utmost refinement and cultivation of the mind. I don’t want ladies to do the servants’ work; I only want them to have the opportunity of learning to explain how such work should be performed, and to understand, even in theory, why and wherefore certain causes bring about certain results in domestic economy.

Let us take the mistress of an ordinary middle-class household, a household where the husband works hard to make an income of from 500_l._ to 1,000_l._ a year, on which four or five children have to be educated and set forth in the world, and perhaps relations to be helped besides (for poor people generally have to help their relations). Ten years ago it would have been, for that rank of life, almost a large income. Nowadays it is a very small one, and it has therefore become more than ever of grave importance that the person on whom its management chiefly depends should know something besides music and drawing. Well, then, this typical lady shall be amiable, intelligent, anxious to do her best for her family and household, and yet what state of things shall we be tolerably sure to find in such a house? In the nursery, “Missis” is all that is capable and useful. She thoroughly understands how to provide for the health and pretty toilettes of her nice little children. She and Nurse get on very well; they have a mutual respect and confidence in each other’s “knowledgeableness,” and a thorough belief in each other’s capacity. All is right at the top of the house. On the next story the lady is not quite so certain of her ground. She has indeed slender theories on the subject of dust, and, we will hope, a wholesome love of fresh air, but a new housemaid will probably find that she can do pretty much as she likes in her own department.

But it is not till we come down to the kitchen that we begin to suspect there is a screw loose somewhere. _If_ our lady has been fortunate enough to stumble upon a cook who for 14_l._ or 16_l._ a year will cook savoury meals for her every day of her life; a cook who is as clean as she is clever, and as honest as she is sober, then indeed there will be peace and harmony in that establishment, unless the cook should happen to have a bad temper. But how is it if the cook be merely an ignorant, honest, “willing” young woman? Who is to teach her? How and where is she to be trained? That has hitherto been the great difficulty of English middle-class life, and it is to remove, or at all events to give those who wish it an opportunity of removing it, that the National School of Cookery is to be established at South Kensington. Everything cannot be done in a moment; unsuspected needs will crop up, an extended sphere will necessitate wider arrangements; but I can safely affirm that the point which will be steadily kept in view by the Committee is this great need of the English people—the want of some place where a girl or woman can be taught how to cook. It is not necessary for ladies to bend over the fire and harden their palms with saucepan handles, for it is easier to teach an educated person by theory than an uneducated one; and a lady will carry away a great deal of useful knowledge from a lecture where a cook-maid would have been swamped by words and phrases above her capacity. There will therefore be both forms of education; but, so far as my own experience goes, and speaking confidentially, I should have been very thankful for both opportunities of practical instruction before I went to New Zealand. I might then perhaps have been saved many an anxious moment, to say nothing of constant culinary discomfiture. I _did_ go down to a friend’s kitchen more than once, and try what knowledge I could pick up, but I was so bewildered by the size and splendour of the _batterie-de-cuisine_, and the cook would persist in regarding my desire for information as either a whim or a joke on my part, so that it ended by my learning nothing whatever which proved of any practical use to me. To begin with, I could not explain to the cook what I wanted to know; I could not even say where my ignorance began or where it ended, though indeed I found out afterwards that it would have been well to have established some infallible test for ascertaining when the kettle boiled. What experiments even in this line were necessary when I set up for myself! including one recipe of turning the kitchen poker into a sort of tuning-fork, and holding the handle to my ear, whilst the poker-point rested on the lid of the kettle. That method soon fell into disfavour, for it used generally to result in upsetting the whole affair and extinguishing the kitchen fire.

Well, then, to return to the purpose of this slender volume. If it even awakens a sense of ignorance in its readers, something will have been gained, for I am much mistaken in my knowledge of women of my own class and position in life, as well as of those in a higher rank, if, when once they feel the need of practical instruction and improvement in their domestic arrangements, the next step will not be to endeavour to acquire that knowledge. Also, I hope and believe that the artisan’s young wife, who feels the commissariat and cooking a heavy burthen on her mind and her hands, will set to work to learn how and why certain food-substances are more wholesome and therefore more economical than others, and in what fashion they should be cooked so as to make them go further and render them palatable.

Lower than this grade in our social scale it seems hard to go. It is too much to expect the crowds whose daily bread is a perpetual miracle, to have the time and the means to learn to cook better. When it is generally a matter of chance and locality what sort of food they can provide for themselves and their children, it seems a bitter mockery to tell them this, that, and the other is the most nourishing diet, or to recommend rump-steaks to them instead of bread and dripping. But here, those rich and benevolent people, whose comforts and luxuries have been and will be secured to themselves and their families for many a day, may possibly find another outlet for that spring of human sympathy and charity which—whatever pessimists may say to the contrary—runs bright and sparkling beneath our natures, and wells up to make many a green and blessed spot in our own lives and those of others.

Let us look for a moment at our country villages, and think how often it happens that the Squire’s and the Rector’s wife is asked to take some well-behaved cottage-girl and “learn” her to cook.

With the best will in world, what can these kind ladies do? With a sigh they will consent, and return home to announce—probably with some trepidation—to their cook, that “a new girl” is coming. This means a year of misery and discomfort to everybody. The cook does not care about teaching the girl, and will most likely take but slender pains to do so. The girl feels that she is only on sufferance in the kitchen, and is in a false position there, besides. It will probably be very difficult, if not impossible, for her to get anything like a regular useful lesson from her aggrieved instructress. Everything that is broken in the kitchen is laid to her charge, and at the end of the year I question whether, even under the most favourable circumstances, such a girl can possibly have learned anything which will be of real practical value to her. As soon as ever she begins to have a dawning idea on the subject of a muttonchop, she must go elsewhere and make room for another beginner. Now, the same money which would keep this girl for a year, would give her proper instruction in a proper place.

How constantly it happens that a young woman who is happily placed as housemaid or nursemaid, or apprenticed to a trade, loses her mother, and it becomes absolutely necessary that she should give up her situation and return home to fill, as best she may, her mother’s vacant place. Such a girl has probably never cooked a meal for herself in her life. She may return home with an earnest and affectionate desire to do her best for her father’s and brothers’ comfort, but can she know by inspiration how to cook their meals? Even in my own limited experience I have repeatedly heard laments on this score, and felt myself at the same time quite powerless to help beyond the vague suggestion that the beginner should ask Mrs. So-and-so to show her a little how to cook; Mrs. So-and-so knowing probably very little herself.

Many hundreds and thousands of people in London and our other cities and watering-places live, at all events for a certain portion of the year, in lodgings, or, as they are more elegantly styled, furnished apartments. Imagine a monster meeting of lodgers in the Albert Hall, assembled to proclaim their greatest grievance. Would there not be one universal roar of “The food”?

I have occasionally lived in lodgings myself, and I can speak from my own experience, feeling confident that it will represent the experience of a considerable portion of the houseless community. I found invariably civility, generally cleanliness (or at all events that is a remediable evil), and, with scarcely any exception, _vile food_. When I complained, the stereotyped answer, given in a very hopeless tone, used to be: “Well, ma’am, I know it’s not exactly right, but it’s the gal; you see, she don’t know nothing, and I can’t cook myself, not to say well.” Now, why can’t the “gal” cook, poor soul? Has she ever been taught, or had even a chance of learning? Do we put ever so willing a man to fire an Armstrong gun or set up type without the slightest previous instruction on the subject? Why should a “gal” be taken from her school life (this is imagining the most favourable conditions), and suddenly be expected to know how to cook, especially when her teacher is confessedly as ignorant as herself? The only bright exception to this rule is when a girl has had the rare good fortune to be trained in some charitable institution, where she has been properly taught to _cook_ as well as to scrub and clean, and to keep herself neat and tidy, even whilst she is working. Yet, as I write the words “rare good fortune,” a remorseful pang comes over me; for, however such training may benefit the poor child and her employers in after years, it has probably been necessary, in order for her to be admitted into such an institution, that she should have been a waif or stray, an orphan, or a poor deserted child, or exceptionally wretched in some way, and it is from her very homelessness and helplessness that what I find myself calling her “rare good fortune” has sprung.

I have already alluded in another place (page 36) to the case of the domestic servant who has been a housemaid or a nursemaid, or waited on ladies, and who perhaps marries and finds herself in a nice little home which it becomes her duty to keep bright and clean. She can do everything except cook, but I venture to say she will find this a great difficulty, and there will be a good deal of unconscious waste and extravagance before even the Rubicon of fried bacon is passed.

It would be a good opportunity for this class of servants to learn cooking at the National School when families go out of town for the autumn, and two or three servants are left in an empty house to while away a couple of months as best they can. I do not want to curtail or interfere with any one’s holiday, but it could scarcely be a grievance to a young woman who is perhaps looking forward to a little home of her own some not very distant day, to have the opportunity of taking lessons in the art of cooking her husband’s meals. Many of our subscribers may be fortunate enough to possess cooks who are masters or mistresses of their science, and to whom the word instruction dare not be mentioned. What I would venture to suggest to such people is, that although they may not need instruction for their cooks, they might utilize the advantages which their subscriptions will give them, for the benefit of their younger servants or even of their tenants’ daughters.

The great point which I have reason to believe the Committee of the National School of Cookery will insist upon is, _thoroughness_. No one will be allowed to run, or try to run, before she can walk. The elementary knowledge of how to light and manage a kitchen fire, of scrupulous cleanliness in pots and pans, of attention to a thousand small but all-important details, will be taught and insisted upon before the learner is allowed to do anything worthy of the name of cooking. She will then probably be surprised to find how comparatively easy it will be to acquire the art, and she may be very sure she will not be allowed to try a second thing until she can do the first, if it be only boiling a kettle or toasting a piece of bread to perfection.

Such is the plan for complete beginners—who, by the way, generally prove the most successful pupils;—but for servants or artisans’ wives who wish to “better” themselves in their kitchens, there will be a different mode of instruction, into which we need not enter here. Ladies will also have an opportunity either of sitting in a chair and listening to a lecture or series of lectures on cooking, beginning with a muttonchop and ending with a _soufflé_, or they may turn back their sleeves, take off their rings and bracelets, and try for themselves. It will be hard if any eager inquirer does not find some course or class to meet her needs; and it is to be hoped that whatever excuse may hereafter be urged for our national bad cookery, the reproach of the want of a place and opportunity of instruction will be done away with for ever.

There is but one parting remark I have to make. It is this. The National School of Cookery is not a mercantile undertaking. I have no wish to attempt to throw discredit upon such undertakings, but simply to state the School of Cookery at South Kensington is not one. There will be no question of dividends or bonuses, nor will there be shareholders whose interests and pockets must be considered. The School has every reason to expect that it will be liberally supported by contributions and donations; if it finds itself mistaken in that expectation, it will close its doors, and there will be no harm done to anybody. It is managed by a Committee of gentlemen whose names are a sufficient guarantee for their actions, and no one of them will be individually a penny the richer or the poorer, whether the undertaking succeeds or not. If the School be well and liberally supported, it will be a sign that the need of improvement in cooking is felt by all classes, and for every shilling subscribed it is the intention of the Committee to afford means of instruction. The more money which is forthcoming, the more widely-spread will be the benefit which the promoters of the National School of Cookery hope and believe it is capable of producing.

THE END.

LONDON: RICHARD CLAY & SONS, PRINTERS.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. ● Enclosed blackletter font in =equals=.