ECONOMICAL COOKERY.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1862, 11 February 1880, Page 3

ECONOMICAL COOKERY.

Last week (says a correspondent of the “Newcastle Chronicle”) I made a few remarks relative to the subject which is at present causing great interest in medical as well as general circles, to wit, tho great need there is of reform in our cookery. Our French neighbors are generally supposed to excel us to a great degree in tho art of making savoury, palatable dishes out of what would be deemed very inferior materials by English housewives, i do think we are too chary of trying anything fresh. Certainly I can’t accuse myself of any diffidence in that respect, for I never see or read a novelty in cookery but what I try it, and sometimes I must confess the result has been most disappointing ; still in moat houses where the income is limited a general idea prevails that a boiled potato, or a cabbage, perhaps a few cauliflowers in the season, form a very admirable vegetable routine. That is a great mistake, and the very first step to improve our ideas of healthful nutritious feeding would be a widening of our vegetable list. The first immediately available resources are peas, beans, and rice, haricot beans, lentils, and tho varied beans of India, while maocaroni forms a host in itself. Little boys are very partial to the last-named article of food, and as its preparation is se simple, I would urge mothers of growing children who as yet have not made it a standing dish in the nursery to try it at once, and I am sure the experiment will never be regretted. I have it in my own house two or three times a week regularly, sometimes simply boiled til.' quite soft, sometimes covered with gravy from roast meat, sometimes after being well boiled we put it in a pie dish with sufficient milk to cover it, place two or three bits of butter the size of a threepenny piece on the top, add sugar to taste, and put in the oven for about an hour, and invariably when we have soup or broth well boiled, maocaroni io either

served in the liquid itself, or put in a dish and served with the soup. Another capital use for macoaroni is to boil till tender, place a a layer of half stewed shin of beef in a deep pie dish, pepper and salt, then a layer of maocaroni (which must have been previously boiled), then beef, pepper, and salt, then maocaroni, and so place alternate layers till the dish be full. Then pour over the liquid in which the beef was stewed previous to putting it in the pie dish, and bake for an hour in a slow oven. I always add three or four cloves and a little grated nutmeg to my hashes, stews, and beef pies—but that, of course, is a matter of taste, I rarely use onions for flavouring ; hence the necessity of substituting some other condiment. The papers which Sir Henry Thompson is at present contributing to the " Nineteenth Century ” deal largely with economy in our way of cooking ; and he earnestly advocates the use of the pipkin (an earthen jar with a handle) and the stew-pot; and one writer to the “ British Medical Review ” goes so far as to say—“ Until the English housewife learns how wasteful is the roastingjack, how costly is the gridiron, and how unneeesesary the ‘ clear lire ’ and the blazing mass of coals—without which she can at present usually neither cook a cutlet nor boil a cup of coffee—the just lessons of household economy are still unknown to her.’ Still, it cannot be very difficult, if anything like a general effort bo made, to popularise the art of making an appetising, nourishing soup with a few bones, a crust of bread, and a few vegetables; nor can it be difficult to naturalise in our own country the delicious and nutritive hominy porridge which is so popular in America among rich and poor alike; and surely the art of etewirag over a few embers in a pipkin which converts scraps of meat, onion, carrot, and bread crusts into a savoury stew, cannot be unattainable. At any rate the present time, when winter is again approaching, and when a slenderly filled purse with which to provide food, firing, and clothing will, I sadly fear, bo the rule, and not the exception, is very suitable for all who are interested in domesticity to make a united effort to impress upon the public the costliness, the waste, nay, the national evil of our present disregard of the wealth of vegetables which is at hand, but seldom or never used by those who ought to be only , too willing to supply their little ones with food which is known to be so nutritive and strength-forming. My space is exhausted, but if all be well I hope to have a farther instalment of gossip on vegetables and their cookery next week, for certainly medical men are striving by all means in their power to inculcate wisdom in the diet which is to sustain the frames of our future men and women as well as feed our own generation, and surely so useful a topic ought to be well ventilated in a Mother’s Corner.