In speakmg of omelets I recommended either a new frying-pan or one that had only been used for omelet purposes. The reason of this is that, however careful the cook might be, the difficulty of absolutely cleansing the frying-pan, suppose, for instance, it had been used for the purpose of frying onions, is really greater than many persons would suppose. Now, a sweet omelet, in which the delicate flavour of vanilla assists, would be ruined by the slightest tinge of onion flavour. Let those who blame a cook for imperfect washing, themselves wash an old eau-de-Cologne bottle tlwroughly, cork it down tightly, and smell it at the end of a week ; they will then be the better able to understand how certain " flavours" possess the property of clinging to hard substances, such as glass, and will be more lenient when they find fault with others. PRINCIPLES SMOKE AND SMELL. Another important point in the principles of cookery for cooks to remember is, to avoid sending things up " smoky." Have you ever tasted a really smoky dish 1 say soup, and have you any idea how it is rendered so 1 for the only way to avoid the disaster is to understand the cause. We will suppose the house well ordered, the kitchen chimney swept regularly, the kitchen stove properly cleaned, and the soot regidarly and carefully brushed away, not only from the back and sides of the gi-ate, but from the outsides of the saucepans. Yet the soup comes up smoky. I will describe the performance of smoking soup. We will suppose the saucepan boiling gently on the fire, which is getting somewhat low ; the cook very properly puts on some coals, which, of course, causes the smoke to rise ; shortly afterwards she looks at the soup to see how it is getting on, or whether it is boiling too fast. We will suppose her young and careless ; and she replaces the lid with a bang, and, in so doing, shuts in some of the smoke into the saucepan. Alas ! the deed is done, and the soup, or indeed any other food, ruined, so far as taste goes. The moral of all this is. Bo not take off the lids of saucepans at all over a smoky fire. There are, of course, many persons to whom these simple elementary truths are so familiar that they may smile at the caution. On the other hand, however, they should recollect it is our duty to teach the ignorant and not the educated ; and we can assure our readers that there are in this country hundreds of so-called cooks, or we may say women who do the cooking, who have sent up dishes smoky from the very cause we have named, who have not the slightest notion of why they became so. Another way of rendering dishes smoky, even when the fire is fairly clear, is to rest the lid of the saucepan on the hob while its contents are being inspected. We would ask some young cook to rest the lid on the hob as we have described, and, instead of re-covering the saucepan, to smell the lid. The lesson would be a very practical one. In cooking, as in every other art and science, to be forewarned is to be fore- armed.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

In speaking of omelets I recommended either a new frying-pan or one that had only been used for omelet purposes. The reason of this is that, however careful the cook might be, the difficulty of absolutely cleansing the frying-pan, suppose, for instance, it had been used for the purpose of frying onions, is really greater than many persons would suppose. Now, a sweet omelet, in which the delicate flavour of vanilla assists, would be ruined by the slightest tinge of onion flavour. Let those who blame a cook for imperfect washing, themselves wash an old eau-de-Cologne bottle thoroughly, cork it down tightly, and smell it at the end of a week ; they will then be the better able to understand how certain " flavours" possess the property of clinging to hard substances, such as glass, and will be more lenient when they find fault with others. PRINCIPLES SMOKE AND SMELL. Another important point in the principles of cookery for cooks to remember is, to avoid sending things up " smoky." Have you ever tasted a really smoky dish 1 say soup, and have you any idea how it is rendered so 1 for the only way to avoid the disaster is to understand the cause. We will suppose the house well ordered, the kitchen chimney swept regularly, the kitchen stove properly cleaned, and the soot regularly and carefully brushed away, not only from the back and sides of the grate, but from the outsides of the saucepans. Yet the soup comes up smoky. I will describe the performance of smoking soup. We will suppose the saucepan boiling gently on the fire, which is getting somewhat low ; the cook very properly puts on some coals, which, of course, causes the smoke to rise ; shortly afterwards she looks at the soup to see how it is getting on, or whether it is boiling too fast. We will suppose her young and careless ; and she replaces the lid with a bang, and, in so doing, shuts in some of the smoke into the saucepan. Alas ! the deed is done, and the soup, or indeed any other food, ruined, so far as taste goes. The moral of all this is. Do not take off the lids of saucepans at all over a smoky fire. There are, of course, many persons to whom these simple elementary truths are so familiar that they may smile at the caution. On the other hand, however, they should recollect it is our duty to teach the ignorant and not the educated ; and we can assure our readers that there are in this country hundreds of so-called cooks, or we may say women who do the cooking, who have sent up dishes smoky from the very cause we have named, who have not the slightest notion of why they became so. Another way of rendering dishes smoky, even when the fire is fairly clear, is to rest the lid of the saucepan on the hob while its contents are being inspected. We would ask some young cook to rest the lid on the hob as we have described, and, instead of re-covering the saucepan, to smell the lid. The lesson would be a very practical one. In cooking, as in every other art and science, to be forewarned is to be forearmed.

Cassell's dictionary of cookery