ch sets my teeth on edge merely in thinking of it.’ COMMON-SENSE COOKERY. 17 ‘ Vary your Diet.’ The real business of a true cook is to place upon our tables whole- some, palatable and varied food, such as you seldom get from the ‘ good plain cooks ’ of the advertisements, a class of domestic servants who usually become cooks, not because they know anything about cookery, but because they prefer the kitchen fire to work they are better fitted for — scrubbing floors and polishing grates. Such cooks are answerable for creating the greater half of the thousand and one dyspeptic ills to which flesh is heir, and on many a tombstone, if such melancholy facts were recorded thereon, it might be truly written, ‘ Died of a Good Plain Cook.’ But we are changing all this, and the time is fast coming, we hope, when, thanks to schools of cookery and improved public opinion, these ‘ good plain cooks ’ will have to join those Sairey Gamps of the sick- room whom trained nurses have relegated to the limbo of things abandoned. At any rate, philosophic cookery is now recognised by all sensible, well-informed people as an important branch of female education, and even in many of the poorest households wives are able to cook well, adding a new charm and attraction to their homes, in- creasing the health and happiness of their family, and that too with a smaller expenditure of money than is required for the old process of ‘ boiling meat at a gallop, half roasting joints, burning greasy chops, making dumplings of awful tenacity,’ and always abusing vilely an instrument which easily lends itself to abuse, that most dyspeptic- creating of all our culinary utensils, the frying-pan. Sir Henry Thompson has pointed out that drinking habits often arise from a flagging appetite and a failing digestion due to bad cookery and improper food, when ‘ the gratification of acquired tastes usurps the function of that zest which healthy appetites produce ;’ and he adds, ‘ It often comes to pass that at middle age, when man finds him- self in the full current of life’s occupations, struggling for pre-eminence with his fellows, indigestion having become persistent in some of its numerous forms, shortens his “staying power,” or spoils his judgment or temper and ‘ the poor man advancing in years shows signs of damage to his constitution from continuous toil with inadequate food, the supply of which is often diminished by his expenditure for beer.’ From statements made by Dr. Christison, who some years since was employed by the Government to investigate this matter for the benefit of our soldiers in war time, it appears that a man of sedentary life can exist in health on 17 ounces per day of real nutriment, while a man engaged in active work requires about 28 ounces, and a hard, con- tinuous worker 30 ounces or more. He also points out that this food must not be selected without careful reference to due proportions of the flesh-forming and heat producing elements, as already explained. 18 ENGLISH AND FRENCH COOKERV.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

ch sets my teeth on edge merely in thinking of it.’ ‘ Vary your Diet.’ The real business of a true cook is to place upon our tables wholesome, palatable and varied food, such as you seldom get from the ‘ good plain cooks ’ of the advertisements, a class of domestic servants who usually become cooks, not because they know anything about cookery, but because they prefer the kitchen fire to work they are better fitted for — scrubbing floors and polishing grates. Such cooks are answerable for creating the greater half of the thousand and one dyspeptic ills to which flesh is heir, and on many a tombstone, if such melancholy facts were recorded thereon, it might be truly written, ‘ Died of a Good Plain Cook.’ But we are changing all this, and the time is fast coming, we hope, when, thanks to schools of cookery and improved public opinion, these ‘ good plain cooks ’ will have to join those Sairey Gamps of the sickroom whom trained nurses have relegated to the limbo of things abandoned. At any rate, philosophic cookery is now recognised by all sensible, well-informed people as an important branch of female education, and even in many of the poorest households wives are able to cook well, adding a new charm and attraction to their homes, increasing the health and happiness of their family, and that too with a smaller expenditure of money than is required for the old process of ‘ boiling meat at a gallop, half roasting joints, burning greasy chops, making dumplings of awful tenacity,’ and always abusing vilely an instrument which easily lends itself to abuse, that most dyspeptic-creating of all our culinary utensils, the frying-pan. Sir Henry Thompson has pointed out that drinking habits often arise from a flagging appetite and a failing digestion due to bad cookery and improper food, when ‘ the gratification of acquired tastes usurps the function of that zest which healthy appetites produce ;’ and he adds, ‘ It often comes to pass that at middle age, when man finds himself in the full current of life’s occupations, struggling for pre-eminence with his fellows, indigestion having become persistent in some of its numerous forms, shortens his “staying power,” or spoils his judgment or temper and ‘ the poor man advancing in years shows signs of damage to his constitution from continuous toil with inadequate food, the supply of which is often diminished by his expenditure for beer.’ From statements made by Dr. Christison, who some years since was employed by the Government to investigate this matter for the benefit of our soldiers in war time, it appears that a man of sedentary life can exist in health on 17 ounces per day of real nutriment, while a man engaged in active work requires about 28 ounces, and a hard, continuous worker 30 ounces or more. He also points out that this food must not be selected without careful reference to due proportions of the flesh-forming and heat producing elements, as already explained.

English and French cookery