Household.

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1553, 17 June 1882, Page 2 (Supplement)

Household.

SPOILING Y. COOKING IN OUR DIET. ' j A lUtSratew has been going the rounds ; of the restaurants, and trjing the food which they daily spread before their customers. He reports a diamal list of failuree in attempting to find a good meal, and tbat, too, irrespective of prices. His experience accords with our own in restaurant diet ; the fault not being on the aide of the materials, but on the part'Of the cooking. We do not wonder that there are so manj dyspeptics, when the cooks of society seem to be bent more upon upoiling than preparing good food for the table. A wellinformed writer on the subject truly sajß :— "To ascertain just how much really good material is spoiled in the cooking would form an interesting and quite fruitful subject of research, and set some'housekeepers at least to thinking. It every loaf of bad bread manufactured from good flour, every overdone or underdone pieoe of meat, prime in original quality, every mass of potatoes ruined in the kettle, every muddy cup of coffee made, every dish of every sort that might be palatable and nutritious, but which, by careleßsneas, ignorance* or neglect is made tasteless and mediocre — if all these could be written down in a book, with dates and specifications, and the average cook confronted with them once a year, what consternation would or should fill her heart, and what a fearful aggregate of material wasted beyond redemption would appear in the account. "The fact is that cookery is entitled to rank among the exact sciences, and that, happy accidents are of rare occurrence in the culinary domain, while unhappy aocidents are constantly happening. There is continually the golden mean to be sought in the admixture of all the elements that are to make up a savory meal, and such is 'the total depravity of material things,' as one of our witty writers once phrased it, that it there is one chance in ten of things going wrong, that chance iv BuretobefalL '• To cooJc a potato exaotly right, so that it will be just done, and no more, be mealy, white, perieoD, requires an exercise 01 talent little short oi genius, so one would think who eats that vegetable at ordinary tables. The same is tiue ot onions, that odorous bulb, which is almost always aervtd undeidonej of beans, which are either burned in the baking or dried to a choking consistency. Now a hungry epicure even can make a good meal off three or four things — nioely cooked meat, perteotly prepared potatoes, a dish of ripe iruit and exemplary oread and butter, is is not variety or quantity that is bo important aB quality, and it those who coo* could only realize this and precipitate all theix: powers upon the perfect preparation of only two dishes at each meul, ihose who reed at their hands would certainly be the gainers. It is a great deal easier, when one has really made up her mind to it, to have everything juet right than it is to let things drifcr, for one right tumg fits anotaer right thing, and tiien tue wnolo ia right. Badly cooked food ia not only sheer waste in nerve, muecle, soul power; the hungry body vainly attempts recuperation in trying to digest and assimilate fooa not ' convenient ' for it, so that what nugiit have been accomplisued had the food been right remains undone." — Exchange,