likewise a coolness on the part of ‘The Complete British Housewife’ which Mrs. John Rokesmith found highly exasperating. She would say, ‘Take a salamander,’ as if a general should command a private to catch a Tartar. Or, she would casually issue the order, ‘Throw in a handful’ of something entirely unattainable. In these, the housewife’s most glaring moments of unreason, Bella would shut her up and knock her on the table, apostrophizing her with the compliment—‘O you ARE a stupid old donkey! Where am I to get it, do you think?’ ”
When I took possession of my first real home, the prettily furnished cottage to which I came as a bride, more full of hope and courage than if I had been wiser, five good friends presented me with as many cookery-books, each complete, and all by different compilers. One day’s investigation of my ménage convinced me that my lately-hired servants knew no more about cookery than I did, or affected stupidity to develop my capabilities or ignorance. Too proud to let them suspect the truth, or to have it bruited abroad as a topic for pitying or contemptuous gossip, I shut myself up with my “Complete Housewives,” and inclined seriously to the study of the same, comparing one with the other, and seeking to shape a theory which should grow into practice in accordance with the best authority. I don’t like to remember that time! The question of disagreeing doctors, and the predicament of falling between two stools, are trivial perplexities when compared with my strife and failure.
Said the would-be studious countryman to whom a mischievous acquaintance lent “Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary” as an entertaining volume—“I wrastled, and I wrastled, and I wrastled with it, but I couldn’t get up much of an int’rest.”
My wrestling begat naught save pitiable confusion, hopeless distress, and a three-days’ sick headache, during which season I am not sure that I did not darkly contemplate suicide as the only sure escape from the meshes that girt me. At the height—or depth—of my despondency a friend, one with a great heart and steady brain, came to my rescue. Her cheerful laugh over my dilemma rings down to me now, through all these years, refreshingly as it then saluted my ears.
“Bless your innocent little heart!” she cried, in her fresh, gay voice, “Ninety-nine out of a hundred cookbooks are written by people who never kept house, and the hundredth by a good cook who yet doesn’t know how to express herself to the enlightenment of others. Compile a receipt book for yourself. Make haste slowly. Learn one thing at a time, and when you have mastered it, ‘make a note on it,’ as Captain Cuttle says—never losing sight of the principle that you must do it in order to learn how.”
Then she opened to me her own neatly-written “Manual”—the work of years, recommending, as I seized it that I should commence my novitiate with simple dishes.
This was the beginning of the hoard of practical receipts I now offer for your inspection. For twenty years, I have steadily pursued this work, gleaning here and sifting there, and levying such remorseless contributions upon my friends, that I fear the sight of my paper and pencil has long since become a bugbear. For the kindness and courtesy which have been my invariable portion in this quest, I hereby return hearty thanks. For the encouraging words and good wishes that have ever answered the hint of my intention to collect what had proved so valuable to me into a printed volume, I declare myself to be yet more a debtor. I do not claim for my compend the proud pre-eminence of the “Complete American Housewife.” It is no boastful system of “Cookery Taught in Twelve Lessons.” And I should write myself down a knave or a fool, were I to assert that a raw cook or ignorant mistress can, by half-a-day’s study of my collection, equal Soyer or Blot, or even approximate the art of a half-taught scullion.
We may as well start from the right point, if we hope to continue friends. You must learn the rudiments of the art for yourself. Practice, and practice alone, will teach you certain essentials. The management of the ovens, the requisite thickness of boiling custards, the right shade of brown upon bread and roasted meats—these and dozens of other details are hints which cannot be imparted by written or oral instructions. But, once learned, they are never forgotten, and henceforward your fate is in your own hands. You are mistress of yourself, though servants leave. Have faith in your own abilities. You will be a better cook for the mental training you have received at school and from books. Brains tell everywhere, to say nothing of intelligent observation, just judgment, a faithful memory, and orderly habits. Consider that you have a profession, as I said just now, and resolve to understand it in all its branches. My book is designed to help you. I believe it will, if for no other reason, because it has been a faithful guide to myself—a reference beyond value in seasons of doubt and need. I have brought every receipt to the test of common sense and experience. Those which I have not tried myself were obtained from trustworthy housewives—the best I know. I have enjoyed the task heartily, and from first to last the persuasion has never left me that I was engaged in a good cause. Throughout I have had you, my dear sister, present before me, with the little plait between your brows, the wistful look about eye and mouth that reveal to me, as words could not, your desire to “do your best.”
“In a humble home, and in a humble way,” I hear you add, perhaps. You “are not ambitious;” you “only want to help John, and to make him and the children comfortable and happy.”
Heaven reward your honest, loyal endeavors! Would you mind if I were to whisper a word in your ear I don’t care to have progressive people hear?—although progress is a grand thing when it takes the right direction. My dear, John and the children, and the humble home, make your sphere for the present, you say. Be sure you fill it—full! before you seek one wider and higher. There is no better receipt between these covers than that. Leave the rest to God. Everybody knows those four lines of George Herbert’s, which ought to be framed and hung up in the work-room of every house:—
“A servant, with this clause,
Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and th’ action fine.”
I wonder if the sainted poet knows—in that land where drudgery is one of the rough places forever overpast, and work is unmingled blessing—to how many sad and striving hearts those words have brought peace?
And by way of helping John, not only by saving money and preparing palatable and wholesome dishes for his table, but by sparing the wife he loves many needless steps and much hurtful care, will you heed a homely hint or two relative to the practice of your art? Study method, and economy of time and strength, no less than of materials. I take it for granted that you are too intelligent to share in the vulgar prejudice against labor-saving machines. A raisin-seeder costs a trifle in comparison with the time and patience required to stone the fruit in the old way. A good egg-beater—the Dover, for instance—is a treasure. So with farina-kettles, syllabub churns, apple-corers, potato-peelers and slicers, clothes wringers and sprinklers, and the like. Most of these are made of tin—are therefore cheap and easily kept clean. Let each article have its own place in the closet and kitchen, to which restore it so soon as you have done using it. Before undertaking the preparation of any dish, read over the receipt carefully, unless you are thoroughly familiar with the manufacture of it. Many excellent housewives have a fashion of saying loftily, when asked how such things are made—“I carry all my receipts in my head. I never wrote out one in my life.”
And you, if timid and self-distrustful, are smitten with shame, keep your receipt-book out of sight, and cram your memory with ingredients and measures, times and weights, for fear Mrs. Notable should suspect you of rawness and inefficiency. Whereas the truth is, that if you have a mind worthy of the name, its powers are too valuable to be laden with such details. Master the general principles, as I said just now, and for particulars look to your marching-orders. Having refreshed your memory by this reference, pick out from your household stores, and set in convenient order, within reach of your hand, everything you will need in making ready the particular compound under consideration. Then, take your stand in the midst—or sit, if you can. It is common sense—oftentimes a pious duty, to take judicious care of your physical health. I lay it down as a safe and imperative rule for kitchen use—Never stand when you can do your work as well while sitting. If I could have John’s ear for a minute, I would tell him