CHAPTER I THE MILK PITCHER IN THE HOME   (Reprinted from The Farmer's Wife, by permission of the Webb Publishing Company.) There is a quaint old fairy tale of a friendly pitcher that came and took up its abode in the home of an aged couple, supplying them from its magic depths with food and drink and many other comforts. Of this tale one is reminded in considering the place of the milk pitcher in the home. How many housewives recognize... more...

ENGLISH HOUSEWIFRY. 1. To make VERMICELLY SOOP. Take a neck of beef, or any other piece; cut off some slices, and fry them with butter 'till they are very brown; wash your pan out every time with a little of the gravy; you may broil a few slices of the beef upon a grid-iron: put all together into a pot, with a large onion, a little salt, and a little whole pepper; let it stew 'till the meat is tender, and skim off the fat in the boiling; them... more...

INTRODUCTION This book is written with the object of laying before the public a cookery book which will be useful not only to vegetarians, but also to flesh eaters, who are often at a loss for recipes for non-flesh dishes. Nowadays most people admit that "too much meat is eaten"; but when the housewife tries to put before her family or friends a meal in which meat is to be conspicuous by its absence, she is often at a loss how to set about it.... more...

Grace before Meat "Let me cook the dinners of a nation, and I shall not care who makes its laws." Women, if they did but know it, might well thus paraphrase a famous saying. Proper dinners mean so much—good blood, good health, good judgment, good conduct. The fact makes tragic a truth too little regarded; namely, that while bad cooking can ruin the very best of raw foodstuffs, all the arts of all the cooks in the world can do no more than... more...

INTRODUCTION. By choice cookery is meant exactly what the words imply. There will be no attempt to teach family or inexpensive cooking, those branches of domestic economy having been so excellently treated by capable hands already. It may be said en passant, however, that even choice cooking is not necessarily expensive. Many dishes cost little for the materials, but owe their daintiness and expensiveness to the care bestowed in cooking or to a... more...

Cocoa and Chocolate The term "Cocoa," a corruption of "Cacao," is almost universally used in English-speaking countries to designate the seeds of the small tropical tree known to botanists as THEOBROMA CACAO, from which a great variety of preparations under the name of cocoa and chocolate for eating and drinking are made. The name "Chocolatl" is nearly the same in most European languages, and is taken from the Mexican name of the drink,... more...

INTRODUCTION. We wish it to be distinctly understood at starting, that the present work is purely a cookery-book, written on the principles generally adopted by vegetarians; and as, until quite recently, there seemed to be in the minds of many some doubt as to the definition of vegetarianism, we will quote the following explanation from the head of the report of the London Vegetarian Society:—“The aims of the London Vegetarian... more...

REMARKS ON BREAKFAST COOKERY. "Dinner may be pleasant,So may social tea;But yet methinks the breakfastIs best of all the three." The importance of preparing a variety of dainty dishes for the breakfast table is but lightly considered by many who can afford luxuries, quite as much as by those who little dream of the delightful, palate-pleasing compounds made from "unconsidered trifles." The desire of the average man is to remain in bed until... more...

Foreword No apologies are offered for this book. In fact, we rather like it. Many years have been spent in gathering this information, and naught is written in malice, nor through favoritism, our expressions of opinion being unbiased by favor or compensation. We have made our own investigation and given our own ideas. That our opinion does not coincide with that of others does not concern us in the least, for we are pleased only with that which... more...

PREFACE. As this treatise is calculated for the improvement of the rising generation of Females in America, the Lady of fashion and fortune will not be displeased, if many hints are suggested for the more general and universal knowledge of those females in this country, who by the loss of their parents, or other unfortunate circumstances, are reduced to the necessity of going into families in the line of domestics, or taking refuge with their... more...