DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3720#0049
COOKERY.
33
and, when the whole had been cut up, the joints were removed
to the kitchen, on wooden trays, to be cooked according to the
taste of the chef. Some were roasted, others boiled, stewed, or
broiled, and some of the meat was pounded and minced—
doubtless to make those excellent dishes of stuffed vine-
leaves, cucumbers, and other forcemeat viands of the East,
(W. 18.)
which might well be introduced into our cuisine.* Like their
successors, they employed very simple processes for cooking
(as well as for making gold ornaments, and other fine work,
such as the Hindoos and other Orientals still produce by
* It is to be hoped that the definition of man, "a cooking animal," does
not imply any excellence in the art, or we in England might rank very low in
the human scale ; but though it is not desirable that men should devote their
time to the study of gastronomy, it is of some importance that the poor should
at least be enabled to come under the denomination of " cooking animals."
" A home" is now, with reason, considered their great want; but when the
wife is incapable of providing those "creature comforts," which might make
the poor man enjoy bis "home," and is unable even to cook a dinner for him
on his return from work, he naturally seeks them out of his own house, flies
to the excitement of drink (which is rendered doubly injurious by his ordinary
beverage being supplied him "on the premises" of the vender), and returns
home to ill-treat one whose fault is her inability to be a complete '' helpmate
ior him," from wanting some of the simplest acquirements of a poor man's
wife. Those, then, who with charitable feelings so kindly interest themselves
in the welfare of the poor, would greatly add to their domestic comforts by
enabling girls to learn this useful art,—for education does not consist solely of
instruction; and many learned studies will be found in after-life much less
useful than more homely acquirements.
33
and, when the whole had been cut up, the joints were removed
to the kitchen, on wooden trays, to be cooked according to the
taste of the chef. Some were roasted, others boiled, stewed, or
broiled, and some of the meat was pounded and minced—
doubtless to make those excellent dishes of stuffed vine-
leaves, cucumbers, and other forcemeat viands of the East,
(W. 18.)
which might well be introduced into our cuisine.* Like their
successors, they employed very simple processes for cooking
(as well as for making gold ornaments, and other fine work,
such as the Hindoos and other Orientals still produce by
* It is to be hoped that the definition of man, "a cooking animal," does
not imply any excellence in the art, or we in England might rank very low in
the human scale ; but though it is not desirable that men should devote their
time to the study of gastronomy, it is of some importance that the poor should
at least be enabled to come under the denomination of " cooking animals."
" A home" is now, with reason, considered their great want; but when the
wife is incapable of providing those "creature comforts," which might make
the poor man enjoy bis "home," and is unable even to cook a dinner for him
on his return from work, he naturally seeks them out of his own house, flies
to the excitement of drink (which is rendered doubly injurious by his ordinary
beverage being supplied him "on the premises" of the vender), and returns
home to ill-treat one whose fault is her inability to be a complete '' helpmate
ior him," from wanting some of the simplest acquirements of a poor man's
wife. Those, then, who with charitable feelings so kindly interest themselves
in the welfare of the poor, would greatly add to their domestic comforts by
enabling girls to learn this useful art,—for education does not consist solely of
instruction; and many learned studies will be found in after-life much less
useful than more homely acquirements.