Inasmuch as an American is quite as capable of enjoying a good meal as
any one else, why is it that we are so conspicuously ungastronomic as a
nation?
It is obvious that the cooks are largely to blame. It is so difficult
to procure a good cook that most of us give up the search in despair
and resignedly eat what is placed before us.
In Europe it is still comparatively easy to find a young woman or a man
who, by domestic training, has learned to prepare a savory meal and
is willing to take the trouble necessary to get satisfactory results.
In the United States few of the helpers available have any domestic
traditions to fall back on. As a rule, they frankly admit, on applying
for a place, that they know only "plain cooking." As a matter of fact,
few of them can even boil an egg or a potato without spoiling it.
They are not interested in their work, _as they would be if they were
experts_, and their main object is to get as much money as they can for
as little work as possible. To be sure, a cook's hours are long, but
many of them are spent in dawdling.
It is unfortunate that most of our hired cooks are Irish. There are and
have been excellent cooks of this nation, but as a rule the Irish are
not so interested in this art as the French, Germans, Italians and
Swedes, and the results are deplorable, especially when, as is usually
the case, the mistress is herself so ignorant that she cannot tell the
cook why the food is wrong and how it could be improved.
The worst of it is that if the mistress of the house does know enough
herself to teach the new cook some tricks, the latter is likely to
leave because, on account of this newly acquired knowledge, she can get
higher wages elsewhere! Which reminds me of what happened to my wife's
grandmother. She once had a cook who was absolutely green, but who
wanted the highest wages. When asked how she could demand so much when
she admitted her ignorance, she retorted:
"Ah, Mrs. Black, the larnin' is the sevarest part of it."
It will not do, however, to put all the blame on the domestic helpers.
Only one family in twelve, even in our wealthy country, can afford
to hire a cook. In the other eleven families the women of the house
are personally responsible for the meals. Why are these generally so
unsatisfactory?
Visitors from abroad who have asked themselves this question, usually
answer it by saying that Americans have idolized and spoiled their
women and are now paying the penalty.
"The European," says one of them, "takes it as a matter of course that
the woman he marries will be his home-maker and housekeeper, able and
willing, if necessary, to do the careful cooking on which his health
and his enjoyment of life depend so largely. In America the main object
of the women seems to be to throw off all the responsibilities of
housekeeping so that they may either gad about socially or engage in
outside employment. The necessary meals are hastily cooked, marketing
is done by telephone, the grocer and butcher are foolishly trusted as
to the quality of the raw material, and the results are such as we
see--monotonous, unwholesome, insipid meals, followed by indigestion."
There is no doubt some truth in this foreigner's observations, though
he takes no account of the many thousands of American wives who work
as hard to make their homes abodes of comfort, health and happiness as
their husbands do to supply the necessary cash.
On the American men falls a large share of the blame for existing
conditions. Completely absorbed in their private and particular
business they labored too long under the delusion that their whole
duty consisted in supplying the cash needed for housekeeping. Their
indifference to the sources and the quality of the raw material of
the food they ate, brought into existence a horde of adulterators and
poisoners on a scale never before witnessed anywhere--and that is
another important reason why we are not a gastronomic nation. With such
sophisticated material the best cooks in the world could not prepare
appetizing, wholesome meals; and when meals are not appetizing, men
lose interest in them, bolting their food, and passing on to things
that seem more important and agreeable.
Adulterators and spoilers of food have existed since the days of the
ancient Greeks and Romans and probably they flourished long before
them; but never before had the far-famed "Yankee ingenuity" been
brought to bear on the ignoble task of deceiving people as to what they
were eating and drinking.
Of this ingenuity a striking illustration was given at Washington
when the pure food agitators, headed by Dr. Wiley of the Department
of Agriculture, gave an exhibit before Congress. On a table had been
placed--along with other similarly fraudulent articles--a bottle of
"honey." On the surface of it floated a bee. Now, the man who put that
bee in the bottle had said to himself: "Nine persons out of ten will,
on seeing it, conclude instantly that it got in accidentally and that
it proves the honey to be genuine." But that bottle never contained any
honey; it was filled with a sticky, sweet substance resembling honey in
appearance, but instead of being made up of the products of the bee's
beneficent floral industry, it contained ingredients some of which were
injurious to health.