I am indebted to a French girl living in our family for the substance of
this chapter. Her parents being obliged to live in a most economical way
in St. Louis, still had an uncommonly good table. One resource was a
little garden, in which small compass were raised enough onions,
tomatoes, carrots, and a few other vegetables, to nearly supply the
family. A small bed of four feet square, surrounded by a pretty border
of lettuce, was large enough for raising all necessary herbs, such as
sage, summer savory, thyme, etc. Little boxes in the kitchen windows
contained growing parsley, ever ready for use.
I give receipts for three of their soups--the onion, vegetable _purée_,
and potato soups being most excellent, and costing not over from five to
ten cents each. One of their dinner dishes was a heart (10 cents)
stuffed, baked two or three hours, and served with a brown gravy and an
onion garnish (see receipt). Still another was a two-pound round-steak
(20 cents), spread with a bread and sage stuffing, then rolled, tied,
floured, seasoned on top, then baked, basting it often. It was a pretty
dish, with tomato sauce around it. Sometimes a cheap fish was cut in
slices, egged and bread-crumbed, fried, and garnished with fried
potatoes. They had always a salad for dinner, prepared from their border
of lettuce, some cold potatoes, cold beans, or other vegetable. A fine
breakfast dish was of kidneys (5 cents). Few Americans know how to cook
kidneys, and butchers often throw them away; yet in France they are
considered a great delicacy.
Their _répertoire_ of cheap dishes was large; so there was always a
change for, at least, each day of the week. A crumb of bread was never
wasted. All odd morsels were dried in the oven, pounded, and put away in
a tin-box, ready for breading cutlets cut from any pieces of mutton or
veal, and for many other purposes.
Any pieces of suet or drippings were clarified and put one side, to be
used for frying. Remains of cooked vegetables of any kind were saved for
soups and sauces. Not a slice of a tomato nor leaf of a cabbage was
thrown away.
If they had butter that was not entirely sweet, they added more salt, a
little soda, brought it to a boil on the stove, and then put it away in
a little crock. By allowing the settlings to remain at the bottom, the
butter became entirely sweet, and not too salt for cooking purposes.
Chickens, cutlets, etc., were larded at this table. Now, just to mention
the word “larding” is to overwhelm a common cook; and to require it, is
to rivet in the minds of most housewives the entire impracticability of
a whole receipt in which it is an item. Pieces of salt pork or breakfast
bacon should always be kept in the house. A pound of it, which is not
expensive, may last a long time, as it requires very little for
flavoring many things; then, if one has any idea of sewing, or what it
is to push a needle through any thing, one can lard. It only requires a
larding-needle, which costs fifteen cents, and which should last a
century. By placing little cut strips of pork in the end of the needle,
as is explained among “directions,” then drawing the needle through
parts of the meat, leaving the pork midway, this wonderfully difficult
operation is accomplished. It is only a few minutes’ pastime to lard
turkeys, chickens, birds, cutlets, sweet-breads, etc., which gives to
them flavor and style.
Limited in fortune as were this family, they were never without stock at
hand. Their meat for croquettes, patties, etc., had served a duty to the
soup-kettle. If a chicken was to be boiled for the table, it was thrown
into the stock-pot while the soup was simmering, and thus it and the
chicken were both benefited.
Their meat dishes were often garnished with little potato-balls, cooked
_à la Parisienne_, or simply boiled. This seemed extravagant; but as a
French vegetable-cutter only costs twenty-five cents, and the balls can
be cut very rapidly--all the parings boiled and mashed serving another
time as potato-cakes--there was nothing wasted, and little time lost.
In short, this household (and it is a sample of nearly all French
families of limited means) lived well on little more than many an
American family would throw away.
Let me give five bills of fare of their dinners, the second of which is
partly prepared from the remains of the first day:
Beef soup (soup bone), 10 cents.
Veal blanquette and boiled potatoes (knuckle of veal), 15 cents.
Salad of sliced tomatoes, 2 or 3 cents.
Boiled rice, with a border of stewed small pears
(green, or of common variety), 10 cents.
Onion or bean soup, 5 cents.
Fish (en matelote), 15 cents.
Croquettes (made of the remains of the cold
beef-soup meat, and rice), with a tomato sauce.
Salad of cold boiled potatoes.
Fried bread-pudding.
* * * * *
Potato soup.
Round steak, rolled (page 140), with baked, parboiled onions, 25 cents.
Salad of lettuce.
Apple-fritters, with sirup.
* * * * *
Tomato soup.
Beef à la mode, with spinach, 40 cents (enough for two dinners).
Salad of potatoes and parsley.
Rice-pudding.
* * * * *
Noodle soup.
Mutton ragout, with potatoes, 25 cents.
Noodles and stuffed tomatoes.
Cheese omelet.