In preparing a new and carefully revised edition of this, my first
work on general cookery, I have introduced improvements, corrected
errors, and added new receipts, that I trust will, on trial, be
found satisfactory. The success of the book (proved by its immense
and increasing circulation,) affords conclusive evidence that it has
obtained the approbation of a large number of my countrywomen; many of
whom have informed me that it has made practical housewives of young
ladies who have entered into married life with no other acquirements
than a few showy accomplishments. Gentlemen, also, have told me of
great improvements in the family-table, after presenting their wives
with this manual of domestic cookery; and that, after a morning devoted
to the fatigues of business, they no longer find themselves subjected
to the annoyance of an ill-dressed dinner.
No man (or woman either) ought to be incapable of distinguishing bad
eatables from good ones. Yet, I have heard some few ladies boast of
that incapacity, as something meritorious, and declare that they
considered the quality, the preparation, and even the taste of food, as
things entirely beneath the attention of a rational being; their own
minds being always occupied with objects of far greater importance.
Let no man marry such a woman.[A] If indifferent to her own food,
he will find her still more indifferent to his. A wife who cares
not, or knows not what a table ought to be, always has bad cooks;
for she cannot distinguish a bad one from a good one, dislikes
change, and wonders how her husband can attach any importance to so
trifling a circumstance as his dinner. Yet, though, for the sake of
"preserving the peace," he may bring himself to pass over, as "trifling
circumstances," the defects of his daily repasts, he will find himself
not a little mortified, when, on inviting a friend to dinner, he finds
his table disgraced by washy soup, poultry half raw, gravy unskimmed,
and vegetables undrained; to say nothing of sour bread, ponderous
puddings, curdled custards tasting of nothing, and tough pastry.
Let all housekeepers remember that there is no possibility of producing
nice dishes without a liberal allowance of good ingredients. "Out of
nothing, nothing can come," is a homely proverb, but a true one. And so
is the ancient caution against being "penny-wise and pound-foolish."
By judicious management, and by taking due care that nothing is wasted
or thrown away which might be used to advantage, one family will live
"excellently well," at no greater cost in the end than another family
is expending on a table that never has a good thing upon it.
A sufficiency of wholesome and well-prepared food is absolutely
necessary to the preservation of health and strength, both of body and
mind. Ill-fed children rarely grow up with vigorous constitutions; and
dyspepsia, in adults, is as frequently produced by eating food that is
unpalatable or disagreeable to their taste, as by indulging too much
in things they peculiarly relish. For those who possess the means of
living well, it is a false (and sometimes fatal) economy to live badly;
particularly when there is a lavish expenditure in fine clothes, fine
furniture, and other ostentations, only excusable when _not_ purchased
at the expense of health and comfort.