life in the style which in the Old World requires sixteen,—they must
thoroughly understand, and be prepared _to teach_, every branch of
housekeeping,—they must study to make domestic service desirable, by
treating their servants in a way to lead them to respect themselves and
to feel themselves respected,—and there will gradually be evolved from
the present confusion a solution of the domestic problem which shall be
adapted to the life of a new and growing world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
X.
COOKERY.
MY wife and I were sitting at the open bow-window of my study, watching
the tuft of bright red leaves on our favorite maple, which warned us
that summer was over. I was solacing myself, like all the world in our
days, with reading the “Schönberg Cotta Family,” when my wife made her
voice heard through the enchanted distance, and dispersed the pretty
vision of German cottage-life.
“Chris!”
“Well, my dear.”
“Do you know the day of the month?”
Now my wife knows this is a thing that I never do know, that I can’t
know, and, in fact, that there is no need I should trouble myself about,
since she always knows, and what is more, always tells me. In fact, the
question, when asked by her, meant more than met the ear. It was a
delicate way of admonishing me that another paper for the “Atlantic”
ought to be in train; and so I answered, not to the external form, but
to the internal intention.
“Well, you see, my dear, I haven’t made up my mind what my next paper
shall be about.”
“Suppose, then, you let me give you a subject.”
“Sovereign lady, speak on! Your slave hears!”
“Well, then, take _Cookery_. It may seem a vulgar subject, but I think
more of health and happiness depends on that than on any other one
thing. You may make houses enchantingly beautiful, hang them with
pictures, have them clean and airy and convenient; but if the stomach is
fed with sour bread and burnt coffee, it will raise such rebellions that
the eyes will see no beauty anywhere. Now in the little tour that you
and I have been taking this summer, I have been thinking of the great
abundance of splendid material we have in America, compared with the
poor cooking. How often, in our stoppings, we have sat down to tables
loaded with material, originally of the very best kind, which had been
so spoiled in the treatment that there was really nothing to eat! Green
biscuits with acrid spots of alkali,—sour yeast-bread,—meat slowly
simmered in fat till it seemed like grease itself; and slowly congealing
in cold grease,—and above all, that unpardonable enormity, strong
butter! How often I have longed to show people what might have been done
with the raw material out of which all these monstrosities were
concocted!”
“My dear,” said I, “you are driving me upon delicate ground. Would you
have your husband appear in public with that most opprobrious badge of
the domestic furies, a dishcloth pinned to his coat-tail? It is coming
to exactly the point I have always predicted, Mrs. Crowfield: you must
write yourself. I always told you that you could write far better than
I, if you would only try. Only sit down and write as you sometimes talk
to me, and I might hang up my pen by the side of ‘Uncle Ned’s’ fiddle
and bow.”
“O, nonsense!” said my wife. “I never could write. I know what ought to
be said, and I could _say_ it to any one; but my ideas freeze in the
pen, cramp in my fingers, and make my brain seem like heavy bread. I was
born for extemporary speaking. Besides, I think the best things on all
subjects in this world of ours are said, not by the practical workers,
but by the careful observers.”
“Mrs. Crowfield, that remark is as good as if I had made it myself,”
said I. “It is true that I have been all my life a speculator and
observer in all domestic matters, having them so confidentially under my
eye in our own household; and so, if I write on a pure woman’s matter,
it must be understood that I am only your pen and mouth-piece,—only
giving tangible form to wisdom which I have derived from you.”
So down I sat and scribbled, while my sovereign lady quietly stitched by
my side. And here I tell my reader that I write on such a subject under
protest,—declaring again my conviction, that, if my wife only believed
in herself as firmly as I do, she would write so that nobody would ever
want to listen to me again.
COOKERY.
We in America have the raw material of provision in greater abundance
than any other nation. There is no country where an ample,
well-furnished table is more easily spread, and for that reason,
perhaps, none where the bounties of Providence are more generally
neglected. I do not mean to say that the traveller through the length
and breadth of our land could not, on the whole, find an average of
comfortable subsistence; yet, considering that our resources are greater
than those of any other civilized people, our results are comparatively
poorer.
It is said, that, a list of the summer vegetables which are exhibited on
New York hotel-tables being shown to a French _artiste_, he declared
that to serve such a dinner properly would take till midnight. I
recollect how I was once struck with our national plenteousness, on
returning from a Continental tour, and going directly from the ship to a
New York hotel, in the bounteous season of autumn. For months I had been
habituated to my neat little bits of chop or poultry garnished with the
inevitable cauliflower or potato, which seemed to be the sole
possibility after the reign of green-peas was over; now I sat down all
at once to a carnival of vegetables: ripe, juicy tomatoes, raw or
cooked; cucumbers in brittle slices; rich, yellow sweet-potatoes; broad
Lima-beans, and beans of other and various names; tempting ears of
Indian-corn steaming in enormous piles, and great smoking tureens of the
savory succotash, an Indian gift to the table for which civilization
need not blush; sliced egg-plant in delicate fritters; and
marrow-squashes, of creamy pulp and sweetness: a rich variety,
embarrassing to the appetite, and perplexing to the choice. Verily, the
thought has often impressed itself on my mind that the vegetarian
doctrine preached in America left a man quite as much as he had capacity
to eat or enjoy, and that in the midst of such tantalizing abundance he
really lost the apology which elsewhere bears him out in preying upon
his less gifted and accomplished animal neighbors.
But with all this, the American table, taken as a whole, is inferior to
that of England or France. It presents a fine abundance of material,
carelessly and poorly treated. The management of food is nowhere in the
world, perhaps, more slovenly and wasteful. Everything betokens that
want of care that waits on abundance; there are great capabilities and
poor execution. A tourist through England can seldom fail, at the
quietest country-inn, of finding himself served with the essentials of
English table-comfort,—his mutton-chop done to a turn, his steaming
little private apparatus for concocting his own tea, his choice pot of
marmalade or slice of cold ham, and his delicate rolls and creamy
butter, all served with care and neatness. In France, one never asks in
vain for delicious _café-au-lait_, good bread and butter, a nice omelet,
or some savory little portion of meat with a French name. But to a
tourist taking like chance in American country-fare, what is the
prospect? What is the coffee? what the tea? and the meat? and above all,
the butter?
In lecturing on cookery, as on house-building, I divide the subject into
not four, but five, grand elements: first, Bread; second, Butter; third,
Meat; fourth, Vegetables; and fifth, Tea,—by which I mean, generically,
all sorts of warm, comfortable drinks served out in teacups, whether
they be called tea, coffee, chocolate, broma, or what-not.
I affirm, that, if these five departments are all perfect, the great
ends of domestic cookery are answered, so far as the comfort and
well-being of life are concerned. I am aware that there exists another
department, which is often regarded by culinary amateurs and young
aspirants as the higher branch and very collegiate course of practical
cookery; to wit, Confectionery, by which I mean to designate all
pleasing and complicated compounds of sweets and spices, devised not for
health and nourishment, and strongly suspected of interfering with
both,—mere tolerated gratifications of the palate, which we eat, not
with the expectation of being benefited, but only with the hope of not
being injured by them. In this large department rank all sort of cakes,
pies, preserves, ices, etc. I shall have a word or two to say under this
head before I have done. I only remark now, that in my tours about the
country I have often had a virulent ill-will excited towards these works
of culinary supererogation, because I thought their excellence was
attained by treading under foot and disregarding the five grand
essentials. I have sat at many a table garnished with three or four
kinds of well-made cake, compounded with citron and spices and all
imaginable good things, where the meat was tough and greasy, the bread
some hot preparation of flour, lard, saleratus, and acid, and the butter
unutterably detestable. At such tables I have thought, that, if the
mistress of the feast had given the care, time, and labor to preparing
the simple items of bread, butter, and meat, that she evidently had
given to the preparation of these extras, the lot of a traveller might
be much more comfortable. Evidently, she never had thought of these
common articles as constituting a good table. So long as she had puff
pastry, rich black cake, clear jelly, and preserves, she seemed to
consider that such unimportant matters as bread, butter, and meat could
take care of themselves. It is the same inattention to common things as
that which leads people to build houses with stone fronts and
window-caps and expensive front-door trimmings, without bathing-rooms or
fireplaces or ventilators.
Those who go into the country looking for summer board in farm-houses
know perfectly well that a table where the butter is always fresh, the
tea and coffee of the best kinds and well made, and the meats properly
kept, dressed, and served, is the one table of a hundred, the fabulous
enchanted island. It seems impossible to get the idea into the minds of
people that what is called common food, carefully prepared, becomes, in
virtue of that very care and attention, a delicacy, superseding the
necessity of artificially compounded dainties.
To begin, then, with the very foundation of a good table,—_Bread_: What
ought it to be? It should be light, sweet, and tender.
This matter of lightness is the distinctive line between savage and
civilized bread. The savage mixes simple flour and water into balls of
paste, which he throws into boiling water, and which come out solid,
glutinous masses, of which his common saying is, “Man eat dis, he no
die,”—which a facetious traveller who was obliged to subsist on it
interpreted to mean, “Dis no kill you, nothing will.” In short, it
requires the stomach of a wild animal or of a savage to digest this
primitive form of bread, and of course more or less attention in all
civilized modes of bread-making is given to producing lightness. By
lightness is meant simply that the particles are to be separated from
each other by little holes or air-cells; and all the different methods
of making light bread are neither more nor less than the formation in
bread of these air-cells.
So far as we know, there are four practicable methods of aerating bread;
namely, by fermentation,—by effervescence of an acid and an alkali,—by
aerated egg, or egg which has been filled with air by the process of
beating,—and lastly, by pressure of some gaseous substance into the
paste, by a process much resembling the impregnation of water in a
soda-fountain. All these have one and the same object,—to give us the
cooked particles of our flour separated by such permanent air-cells as
will enable the stomach more readily to digest them.
A very common mode of aerating bread, in America, is by the
effervescence of an acid and an alkali in the flour. The carbonic acid
gas thus formed produces minute air-cells in the bread, or, as the cook
says, makes it light. When this process is performed with exact
attention to chemical laws, so that the acid and alkali completely
neutralize each other, leaving no overplus of either, the result is
often very palatable. The difficulty is, that this is a happy
conjunction of circumstances which seldom occurs. The acid most commonly
employed is that of sour milk, and, as milk has many degrees of
sourness, the rule of a certain quantity of alkali to the pint must
necessarily produce very different results at different times. As an
actual fact, where this mode of making bread prevails, as we lament to
say it does to a great extent in this country, one finds five cases of
failure to one of success. It is a woful thing that the daughters of New
England have abandoned the old respectable mode of yeast-brewing and
bread-raising for this specious substitute, so easily made, and so
seldom well made. The green, clammy, acrid substance, called biscuit,
which many of our worthy republicans are obliged to eat in these days,
is wholly unworthy of the men and women of the Republic. Good patriots
ought not to be put off in that way,—they deserve better fare.
As an occasional variety, as a household convenience for obtaining bread
or biscuit at a moment’s notice, the process of effervescence may be
retained; but we earnestly entreat American housekeepers, in Scriptural
language, to stand in the way and ask for the old paths, and return to
the good yeast-bread of their sainted grandmothers.
If acid and alkali must be used, by all means let them be mixed in due
proportions. No cook should be left to guess and judge for herself about
this matter. There is an article, called “Preston’s Infallible
Yeast-Powder,” which is made by chemical rule, and produces very perfect
results. The use of this obviates the worst dangers in making bread by
effervescence.
Of all processes of aeration in bread-making, the oldest and most
time-honored is by fermentation. That this was known in the days of our
Saviour is evident from the forcible simile in which he compares the
silent permeating force of truth in human society to the very familiar
household process of raising bread by a little yeast.
There is, however, one species of yeast, much used in some parts of the
country, against which I have to enter my protest. It is called
salt-risings, or milk-risings, and is made by mixing flour, milk, and a
little salt together, and leaving them to ferment. The bread thus
produced is often very attractive, when new and made with great care. It
is white and delicate, with fine, even air-cells. It has, however, when
kept, some characteristics which remind us of the terms in which our
old-English Bible describes the effect of keeping the manna of the
ancient Israelites, which we are informed, in words more explicit than
agreeable, “stank, and bred worms.” If salt-rising bread does not fulfil
the whole of this unpleasant description, it certainly does emphatically
a part of it. The smell which it has in baking, and when more than a day
old, suggests the inquiry, whether it is the saccharine or the putrid
fermentation with which it is raised. Whoever breaks a piece of it after
a day or two will often see minute filaments or clammy strings drawing
out from the fragments, which, with the unmistakable smell, will cause
him to pause before consummating a nearer acquaintance.
The fermentation of flour by means of brewer’s or distiller’s yeast
produces, if rightly managed, results far more palatable and wholesome.
The only requisites for success in it are, first, good materials, and,
second, great care in a few small things. There are certain low-priced
or damaged kinds of flour which can never by any kind of domestic
chemistry be made into good bread; and to those persons whose stomachs
forbid them to eat gummy, glutinous paste, under the name of bread,
there is no economy in buying these poor brands, even at half the price
of good flour.
But good flour and good yeast being supposed, with a temperature
favorable to the development of fermentation, the whole success of the
process depends on the thorough diffusion of the proper proportion of
yeast through the whole mass, and on stopping the subsequent
fermentation at the precise and fortunate point. The true housewife
makes her bread the sovereign of her kitchen,—its behests must be
attended to in all critical points and moments, no matter what else be
postponed. She who attends to her bread when she has done this, and
arranged that, and performed the other, very often finds that the forces
of nature will not wait for her. The snowy mass, perfectly mixed,
kneaded with care and strength, rises in its beautiful perfection till
the moment comes for fixing the air-cells by baking. A few minutes now,
and the acetous fermentation will begin, and the whole result be
spoiled. Many bread-makers pass in utter carelessness over this sacred
and mysterious boundary. Their oven has cake in it, or they are skimming
jelly, or attending to some other of the so-called higher branches of
cookery, while the bread is quickly passing into the acetous stage. At
last, when they are ready to attend to it, they find that it has been
going its own way,—it is so sour that the pungent smell is plainly
perceptible. Now the saleratus-bottle is handed down, and a quantity of
the dissolved alkali mixed with the paste,—an expedient sometimes making
itself too manifest by greenish streaks or small acrid spots in the
bread. As the result, we have a beautiful article spoiled,—bread without
sweetness, if not absolutely sour.
In the view of many, lightness is the only property required in this
article. The delicate, refined sweetness which exists in carefully
kneaded bread, baked just before it passes to the extreme point of
fermentation, is something of which they have no conception; and thus
they will even regard this process of spoiling the paste by the acetous
fermentation, and then rectifying that acid by effervescence with an
alkali, as something positively meritorious. How else can they value and
relish bakers’ loaves, such as some are, drugged with ammonia and other
disagreeable things, light indeed, so light that they seem to have
neither weight nor substance, but with no more sweetness or taste than
so much white cotton?
Some persons prepare bread for the oven by simply mixing it in the mass,
without kneading, pouring it into pans, and suffering it to rise there.
The air-cells in bread thus prepared are coarse and uneven; the bread is
as inferior in delicacy and nicety to that which is well kneaded as a
raw Irish servant to a perfectly educated and refined lady. The process
of kneading seems to impart an evenness to the minute air-cells, a
fineness of texture, and a tenderness and pliability to the whole
substance, that can be gained in no other way.
The divine principle of beauty has its reign over bread as well as over
all other things; it has its laws of æsthetics; and that bread which is
so prepared that it can be formed into separate and well-proportioned
loaves, each one carefully worked and moulded, will develop the most
beautiful results. After being moulded, the loaves should stand a little
while, just long enough to allow the fermentation going on in them to
expand each little air-cell to the point at which it stood before it was
worked down, and then they should be immediately put into the oven.
Many a good thing, however, is spoiled in the oven. We cannot but
regret, for the sake of bread, that our old steady brick ovens have been
almost universally superseded by those of ranges and cooking-stoves,
which are infinite in their caprices, and forbid all general rules. One
thing, however, may be borne in mind as a principle,—that the excellence
of bread in all its varieties, plain or sweetened, depends on the
perfection of its air-cells, whether produced by yeast, egg, or
effervescence; that one of the objects of baking is to fix these
air-cells, and that the quicker this can be done through the whole mass,
the better will the result be. When cake or bread is made heavy by
baking too quickly, it is because the immediate formation of the top
crust hinders the exhaling of the moisture in the centre, and prevents
the air-cells from cooking. The weight also of the crust pressing down
on the doughy air-cells below destroys them, producing that horror of
good cooks, a heavy streak. The problem in baking, then, is the quick
application of heat rather below than above the loaf, and its steady
continuance till all the air-cells are thoroughly dried into permanent
consistency. Every housewife must watch her own oven to know how this
can be best accomplished.
Bread-making can be cultivated to any extent as a fine art,—and the
various kinds of biscuit, tea-rusks, twists, rolls, into which bread may
be made, are much better worth a housekeeper’s ambition than the
getting-up of rich and expensive cake or confections. There are also
varieties of material which are rich in good effects. Unbolted flour,
altogether more wholesome than the fine wheat, and when properly
prepared more palatable,—rye-flour and corn-meal, each affording a
thousand attractive possibilities,—each and all of these come under the
general laws of bread-stuffs, and are worth a careful attention.
A peculiarity of our American table, particularly in the Southern and
Western States, is the constant exhibition of various preparations of
hot bread. In many families of the South and West, bread in loaves to be
eaten cold is an article quite unknown. The effect of this kind of diet
upon the health has formed a frequent subject of remark among
travellers; but only those know the full mischiefs of it who have been
compelled to sojourn for a length of time in families where it is
maintained. The unknown horrors of dyspepsia from bad bread are a topic
over which we willingly draw a veil.
* * * * *
Next to Bread comes _Butter_,—on which we have to say, that, when we
remember what butter is in civilized Europe, and compare it with what it
is in America, we wonder at the forbearance and lenity of travellers in
their strictures on our national commissariat.
Butter, in England, France, and Italy, is simply solidified cream, with
all the sweetness of the cream in its taste, freshly churned each day,
and unadulterated by salt. At the present moment, when salt is five
cents a pound and butter fifty, we Americans are paying, I should judge
from the taste, for about one pound of salt to every ten of butter, and
those of us who have eaten the butter of France and England do this with
rueful recollections.
There is, it is true, an article of butter made in the American style
with salt, which, in its own kind and way, has a merit not inferior to
that of England and France. Many prefer it, and it certainly takes a
rank equally respectable with the other. It is yellow, hard, and worked
so perfectly free from every particle of buttermilk that it might make
the voyage of the world without spoiling. It is salted, but salted with
care and delicacy, so that it may be a question whether even a
fastidious Englishman might not prefer its golden solidity to the white,
creamy freshness of his own. Now I am not for universal imitation of
foreign customs, and where I find this butter made perfectly, I call it
our American style, and am not ashamed of it. I only regret that this
article is the exception, and not the rule, on our tables. When I
reflect on the possibilities which beset the delicate stomach in this
line, I do not wonder that my venerated friend Dr. Mussey used to close
his counsels to invalids with the direction, “And don’t eat grease on
your bread.”