its enormous importance in the sick-room. More delicate children are
reared into health and strength, and more lives are saved, by good
beef-tea than most of us have any idea of. This is the more
extraordinary when we remember that even the strongest and best beef-tea
contains an almost infinitesimal amount of actual nourishment. So that
it is not to its capacity for supplying to the wasted and feeble human
frame either strength or nourishment that we must attribute its
wonderful efficacy. If the strongest beef-tea be analysed, the meat
would be found to have lost in the process of turning into liquid nearly
all its albumen, fibrine, and caseine. In other words, it would have
parted with its most important constituents; and we might suppose it
therefore to be valueless to the human system. But Experience steps in
where Chemistry stops and shakes her head, and Experience declares that
well-made beef-tea possesses a reparative power on a weakened digestion
which nothing else in the world except milk can come near. It may not
actually contain all the elements of nourishment within itself, as milk
does, but it is a wonderful assimilator. It soothes and repairs and
collects the enfeebled organs and juices, and enables them to return to
their proper functions. Therefore we say that beef-tea is nourishing,
when it is not in the least nourishing in itself, but it has the power
of making ready for other substances to nourish.
Although every sort of meat can be made into soup or broth, beef makes
the best and wholesomest. For one reason of this we must search in the
fibrine, which holds more red juice than that of any other meat, and it
is this red juice which we particularly want. Everybody knows that the
leanest meat is the best for soup-making; the least particle of fat is
out of place in broth or soups, and indeed renders it absolutely
unwholesome as well as nauseous.
In many emergencies beef-tea has to be prepared at almost a moment’s
notice, and then I would recommend that the meat be as thoroughly freed
from fat as possible, chopped finely, and soaked in its own weight of
cold water for ten minutes or so. Then heat it slowly to boiling-point,
let it boil for two or three minutes, and you will have a strong and
delicious beef-tea, better than can be obtained by boiling in the
ordinary way for many hours. Another method is to place the
finely-chopped meat in a large, clean jam-pot, with a little water and a
pinch of salt. The mouth of the vessel should be closed by means of a
tightly-tied bladder or a thick paste all over it, as if it were a
meat-pudding, and placed in a saucepan half full of cold water. The
saucepan should then be covered with its own lid and set upon or by the
side of the fire to simmer slowly. If there be no time to let the
beef-tea or essence in the jam-pot get cold, it must be skimmed as
clearly as possible, and any extra globules of fat floating on the
surface removed by a careful application of white blotting paper. Some
people do not add any water at all to the cut-up beef, under the
impression that the essence must be stronger without the addition. But
my individual experience teaches me that whereas the difference in
nutritive value is very slight, sick people do not like the beef-tea
thus prepared, and will not take it so readily as when it has been made
after the following manner. It is necessary, however, to state that the
process I am now going to describe _cannot_ be hurried, and that it is
therefore imperative to have one day’s notice when beef-tea made in this
way is required.
Take two or three pounds of the leanest beef to be procured, add one
quart of water, and two shank bones of mutton, which bones should be
well washed before using. A pinch of salt, and another pinch of grated
lemon-peel, or a tiny bit of the peel itself, are all I should add, for
a sick person’s throat is generally too tender for pepper, and his
palate too delicate for anything like flavouring or sauces. The lean
meat and shank bones are to be put into a saucepan, whose white
enamelled lining should be daintily and scrupulously clean, and the
saucepan, with its lid fitting very close indeed, set by the side of a
moderately good fire to simmer slowly the whole day long. It must never
approach boiling, and yet the action of fire upon its contents should be
decided, though gentle. At the last moment before shutting up for the
night, strain the soup through a fine hair sieve into a clean basin, and
in the morning you should find, beneath a preserving scum of fat, about
a pint of clear, solid, beef jelly, which can either be eaten cold, or
warmed, without the addition of one drop of water, into a delicious
_clean_-tasting cup of beef-tea. In cold weather double the quantity may
be made, but in that case it should be poured into _two_ basins, and the
fat left to hermetically seal the second basin until it be wanted in its
turn for use. In hot weather the beef-tea should be prepared fresh
_every_ day for the next day’s consumption. I have seen beef-tea
rendered perfectly colourless and white by repeated strainings through
fine muslin sieves, but I do not know that this is any particular
advantage.
In some cases, such as the terrible state of the intestines after
typhoid fever, beef-tea is no use as a reparative agent when prepared
after the above fashion. The meat should then not be cooked at all, only
cut up as lean and fresh and full of red juice as possible, and soaked
for ten or twelve hours in a small quantity of _cold_ water. This will
give a liquid which has never been submitted to the action of fire, and
which looks and tastes like the gravy of under-done meat, but it is of
the highest reparative value to the lacerated stomach. A judicious nurse
will take care that her patient never _sees_ this sort of beef-tea until
he has learned to drink it freely, which he will do if not at first
disgusted by the sight of the clear red fluid.
I have dwelt thus minutely on the value and process of making beef-tea
because I believe it to be the strongest resource of the culinary art in
sickness; but the proper preparation of soup is of great importance in
all households. It is at once an economical, wholesome and savoury form
of nourishing food; yet, to many a _plain_ cook, soup, unless she has
costly materials bought expressly for its manufacture, merely means
greasy hot water flavoured by a _soupçon_ of plate-washing! No soup
should be used the same day it is made, on account of the impossibility
of removing all the scum and fat. But, supposing that a scrag end of
mutton, or the trimmings of cutlets, or bones with a fair amount of meat
left on, should have been simmering gently all the preceding day, and
allowed to get cold at night, so that the layer of fat (which can be
used for other purposes) is easily removed, then we should proceed this
way, always imagining it is wanted for the use of a poor and economical
family. To the clear, fat-free soup, add half a tea-cupful of
well-washed pearl barley or rice—and we must remember that the inferior
and cheaper kind of rice does just as well as the best for this
purpose—a few cleaned and cut-up vegetables, a little onion, pepper and
salt, a sprig or two of herbs tied together, a little pea-meal, any cold
potatoes left from yesterday’s dinner, and the whole allowed to simmer
together, without removing the remains of the meat and bones, until it
be wanted, great care being taken that it should not boil away. The
result of this simmering _ought_ to be a nice, warm, comforting,
_clean_-tasting basin of broth, very different to the weak, greasy
liquid which results from a hastier preparation. It is a very common
mistake with all cooks, except the very best, to put too much water in
the first instance to their materials for soup, and so produce a good
deal of weak, tasteless meat-tea, instead of a smaller quantity of
strong, good soup. English people do not use macaroni half so freely as
they might, for, apart from its nutritive value as offering such a pure
form of wheaten flour, it is exceedingly cheap. Boiled with ever so
little soup made in the way just described (before the addition of the
rice or vegetables), it would form an excellent and wholesome change to
the smallest bill of fare.
All cooks prefer beef to anything else for making soup, but a very
nourishing and delicate broth can be made from two parts of veal and one
part of lean beef, or from chicken or rabbit, though the latter is not
advisable for sick people. Everyone knows the value of good, fat-cleared
mutton broth such as I have just described, but there is a good deal of
truth in the instinct which leads the sick person to prefer beef-tea,
and the healthy labouring man to buy a couple of pounds of beef instead
of double the quantity of any other meat. Beef contains most iron, which
in the state of oxide is one of the chief constituents of the blood: and
we must bear in mind that the nutriment of all carnivorous animals is
derived from the blood originally. A diet, therefore, to be
strengthening, must contain a certain amount of iron, and we do not
obtain this so readily from any other meat as from beef.
LESSON VIII.
FUEL AND FIRE.
The object of cooking is to render the flesh of animals and vegetable
substances easier of mastication, and therefore easier of digestion. How
this object is carried out in most English households let each declare
for himself. And yet there is nothing in the world so simple and so
certain in its effects as the action of fire upon food, if only we can
learn to apply and to regulate that action according to certain laws. I
propose therefore to devote a short lesson to each of the simplest
processes of cooking.
But before doing so I may be permitted here to say a word or two about
the management of the kitchen fire. Few ladies, or even those servants
whose duties lie entirely upstairs, and who see a bright or blazing fire
every time they go into the kitchen, can have any idea how difficult a
thing it is to keep up a good fire all day. When I say a “good fire,” I
mean a good _cooking_ fire—a clear, bright fire, which, without being a
roaring furnace, shall yet be equal to any emergency. It can only be
managed by constant small additions of coal, unless a great deal of
cooking is imminent, and then of course more fuel must be added each
time. But a really good cook will so contrive as to have a small, bright
fire all day long, even when she is not actually cooking. Whenever I
hear that a bit of bread cannot be toasted, or a cup of soup warmed,
because the fire has “just been made up,” I know what has happened. The
cook has allowed the fire to burn down to the last bar of the grate, and
then she has emptied half a coal-scuttle on the few live embers. For
about two hours, therefore, it is useless to expect any cooking from
_that_ fire, and it will be fortunate if no sudden call be made for its
services. Now, if the cook had watched her fire, and had kept it
supplied from time to time with small portions of coal, this emergency
would never have arisen. She could screw up her fireplace to very small
dimensions and yet keep an excellent fire, fit for any unexpected
demand. It is doubtful whether, when she acts on the momentary impulse
of trying to make up for lost time, a cook has any idea of the mischief
she does. Letting the kitchen fire, burn low and then flinging on coals,
is not only an inconvenient, but it is a recklessly extravagant
proceeding. The fire and fireplace have become thoroughly chilled, and
the fresh fuel evaporates almost entirely in the form of smoke for a
long time before the remainder is in a state to use for cooking.
If this rule of preventing waste by constantly adding small portions of
fuel were better understood and acted upon, cooks would not have such a
bitter prejudice against the use of coke. It is, of course, absolutely
valueless to a half-extinguished fire, especially when, instead of being
put on in small quantities, it is flung on in shovelfuls. But to an
already clear, well-established fire, nothing is so satisfactory or
economical an addition as a few lumps of coke judiciously put on. If
frying or broiling is to be done, the fire _cannot_ be too clear, and
coke, if it be properly managed, will give the clearest fire in the
world, but then it requires a certain amount of intelligence and
willingness on the part of the cook to use it to advantage. When I use
the word cook, I do not mean only a regular servant, but any young woman
who is acting, for perhaps the first time in her life, the part of cook
in her husband’s, or father’s, or brother’s house. She will find her
culinary labours much simplified if she keeps the needs of the kitchen
fire always before her mind. I don’t mean to say that such a one may not
what is called “make up” her fire, and leave it untouched between
breakfast and dinner, and dinner and tea, because the chances are a
hundred to one she will not need it, and her duties probably call her
elsewhere; but a cook in a house where there is a family, and perhaps
sickness, or even very young children, ought never for one moment to
forget or neglect her fire all through the day.
I _could_ give her scientific reasons about radiation, and use many long
words to prove to her why, if she keeps her grate well blacked and
polished, she will find her fire burns better and gives out more heat,
but I prefer to appeal to everybody’s experience and common sense if
such warmth and brilliancy be not the result of a beautifully clean and
shining fireplace.
To Sir Benjamin Thomson (an English knight and an American by birth, but
better known to us by his Bavarian title of Count Rumford) we owe
perhaps more improvement in the economical management of fuel and the
construction of stoves and fireplaces, with due regard to that economy,
than to anyone else in modern times. He was induced to turn his
attention to the subject by the scarcity of fuel on the Continent, and
his ideas naturally expanded and enlarged themselves by constant
practice. At last he succeeded in inventing a method of heating houses
and of cooking food which did not require much more than half the usual
amount of fuel, and this economy in firing became such a mania with him
that the joke of the day used to be that his highest ambition was to be
able to cook his own dinner by means of his neighbour’s smoke.
However that may have been, it is very certain that to Count Rumford we
owe a great increase of our knowledge on such subjects, and the reason I
mention him particularly in this place is that he never seemed to weary
of insisting on the necessity of a well-kept brightly-blacked fireplace
to the due economy of the fuel used in it. He explained incessantly how
that kind of heat which is absorbed by either black or white surfaces is
totally devoid of light, and may almost be considered as pure, radiant
heat. So that the first point to be taught, in ever so humble a kitchen,
is that the fireplace should be exquisitely clean, besides well and
brightly blacked, in order to give the fuel which will be used in it a
fair chance of giving out, by radiation, every particle of its latent
heat.
The next thing to be considered is the division and arrangement of that
fuel, beginning from even the starting-point of lighting the fire. A
careful housewife—careful either on her own account or her
mistress’s—will only use half as much wood or shavings to start her fire
with as a thriftless one, because she will take trouble to learn that
there is a scientific but perfectly simple mode of laying and lighting a
fire. She will be told in theory, and prove for herself by practice,
that she must thoroughly clear out her grate, clean and brighten it up
to the highest pitch, and then place in it whatever is her lightest
material, her paper, or dry grass, or shavings, whatever she has at her
command. Next come the slender twigs or dried sprays of heather of the
country, or the neatly-cut firewood of the town. Unless all this is
thoroughly dried over-night, it will be worse than useless, and it is in
attention to details of this sort that true economy consists. A damp
bundle of wood or twigs will smoulder, and be consumed without making
any appreciable difference in the state of the fire, whereas half the
quantity, when thoroughly dry, will start a satisfactory blaze in a few
minutes. Then should the cinders be thoroughly and carefully sifted; and
nowa-days I have no hesitation in saying this is as imperatively
necessary in a palace as in a cottage, on account of the increased price
of coal. No cinders should be relegated to the dusthole at all, for
everything, except actual dust or the hard flakes (called clinkers) left
by coke, can be used. The largest cinders may be laid lightly on the
logs of the blazing sticks, the smaller ones being thrown up, later, at
the back. Cinders are the best material in the world for starting a
fire, and even small lumps of coal should only be sparingly used at
first. Above all, a beginner should be taught that her fire will _never_
light or burn up if she does not take care to establish a free
circulation of air beneath. I am, of course, speaking of ordinary open
fireplaces. Stoves and other patent fireplaces are generally constructed
on entirely different principles, and require special instruction for
the management of their fuel, but this is easily obtained from the
person who fixes them.
Taking it for granted, then, that our ideal cook thoroughly understands
how to light her fire, and is impressed with a due sense of the
importance of a well-blacked shining kitchen-range, or humbler tiny
fireplace—the rule is the same everywhere—and that she is one of those
capable people who would disdain to shelter themselves behind the excuse
of an ill-tempered chimney or a “bad draught,” we will presently proceed
to see what she should cook upon her fire.
PART III.
_THE PRINCIPLES OF DIET AND A FEW CHEAP AND EASY RECIPES._
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=.