THRIFTY COOKING.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5396, 13 July 1878, Page 2 (Supplement)

THRIFTY COOKING.

It is tlio fashion (says an exchange) to make fun of Mr. Gladstone for the versatility lie dis t plays iu sending postcards to all aorta of people on alt aorta of subjects, exercising himself in cultingdown trees, and doing.a multitude of other things. The fault, however; as in . other case’, lies far more with the persons i who are so anxious to make public everything that is don“, said, or written by the famous man Ilian with the man himself. We all of us write jKisfcard- 1 , and take phvsical exercise, . and, if we do not make speeches in public, ' express in private circles opinions which arc more or less,crude, though happily there is no “ chiel amang us taking notes,” which when printed will cause us to repent it. If duo allowance , were made, wo should feel grateful to Mr. Gladstone for so often talking sensibly : on subjects outside i rhis province as a statesman, instead of laughing at him. At any rate, he is to be thanked for the observations he made at - Ifawardcu the other day, on the occasion of a ■ cookery lesson being given to the villagers. He lias ‘already been taken to task By some . wiseacre for having given an' incorrect account of the way in whicboxtail soup was introduced •«t this country, and perhaps he was at fault

in some other of his illustrations. But it is a patent- and , lamentable fact in most English households, rich and poor alikc, there is enormous waste of good .material for food, and not in that alone., When food is so cost!y as it is in England, and when so many persona lack enough of it to keep them in health, it is a)mo ti criminal to ; squander any of it; but there is a more cogent argument than that for individual housekeepers. If careful . training in. domestic thrift will enable, say a shilling’s worth of food to be at the same, time more nutritious and more palatable than eighteenpennyworth often is now, it is palpably to everyone’s interest to learn how to cook iiithe best way. The English are nearly the most extravd’gant of all civilised nations in their cooking arrangements, and often the extravagance is greatest in the houses that can least easily endure it. The recent establishment of schools of cookery and publication of handbooks on domestic thrift mark the progress of a really philanthropic 'movement. ' This is what Mr. Gladstone called attention to in his reference to the system of instruction adoptedat South Kensington, and it was a wise and patriotic thing to do.