I have nothing to say against the artistic distractions
of the day. Anything that will induce love of the beau-
tiful, and remove from us the possibility of a return to
the horrors of hair-cloth andbrocatel and crochet tidies,
will be a stride in the right direction. But what I do
protest against, is the fact, that the same refined girls
and matrons, who so love to adorn their houses that they
will spend hours improving a pickle jar, mediaevalizing
their furniture, or decorating the dinner service, will
shirk everything that pertains to the preparation of food
as dirty, disagreeable drudgery, and sit down to a com-
monplace, ill-prepared meal, served on tliose artistic
plates, as complacently as if dainty food were not a re-
finement ; as if heavy rolls and poor bread, burnt or
greasy steak, and wilted potatoes did not smack of the
shanty, just as loudly as coarse crockery or rag carpet —
indeed far more so ; the carpet and crockery may be due
A Few Preliminary Remarks. 3
to poyerty, but a dainty meal or its reverse will speak
volumes for innate refinement or its lack in the woman
who serves it. You see by my speaking of rag carpets
and dainty meals in one breath, that I do not consider
good things to be the privilege of the rich alone.
There are a great many dainty things the household
of small or moderate means can have just as easily as
the most wealthy. Beautiful bread — light, white, crisp
— costs no more than the tough, thick-crusted boulder,
with cavities like eye-sockets, that one so frequently
meets with as home-made bread. As Hood says:
" Who has not met with home-made bread,
A heavy compound of putty and lead ?"
Delicious coffee is only a matter of care, not expense —
and indeed in America the cause of poor food, even in a
boarding-house, is seldom in the qaality of the articles
so much as in the preparation and selection of them —
yet an epicure can breakfast well with fine bread and
butter and good coffee. And this leads me to another
thing : many people think that to give too much atten-
tion to food shows gluttony. I have heard a lady say
with a tone of virtuous rebuke, when the conversation
turned from fashions to cooking, '' I give very little time
to cooking, we eat to live only " — which is exactly what
an animal does. Eating to live is mere feeding. Brillat-
Savarin, an abstemious eater himself, among other witty
things on the same topic says, " V animal se repait,
Thomme mange, Vhomme d'^ esprit seul sait manger, ^^
Nine people out of ten, when they call a man an
epicure, mean it as a sort of reproach, a man who is
averse to every-day food, one whom plain fare would
fail to satisfy ; but Grimod de la Reyniere, the most eel-
4 Culture and Cooking,
Page 3
Presented as published in 1885. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
I have nothing to say against the artistic distractions of the day. Anything that will induce love of the beautiful, and remove from us the possibility of a return to the horrors of hair-cloth andbrocade and crochet tidies, will be a stride in the right direction. But what I do protest against, is the fact, that the same refined girls and matrons, who so love to adorn their houses that they will spend hours improving a pickle jar, mediaevalizing their furniture, or decorating the dinner service, will shirk everything that pertains to the preparation of food as dirty, disagreeable drudgery, and sit down to a commonplace, ill-prepared meal, served on those artistic plates, as complacently as if dainty food were not a refinement ; as if heavy rolls and poor bread, burnt or greasy steak, and wilted potatoes did not smack of the shanty, just as loudly as coarse crockery or rag carpet — indeed far more so ; the carpet and crockery may be due
A Few Preliminary Remarks. 3
to poyerty, but a dainty meal or its reverse will speak volumes for innate refinement or its lack in the woman who serves it. You see by my speaking of rag carpets and dainty meals in one breath, that I do not consider good things to be the privilege of the rich alone.
There are a great many dainty things the household of small or moderate means can have just as easily as the most wealthy. Beautiful bread — light, white, crisp — costs no more than the tough, thick-crusted boulder, with cavities like eye-sockets, that one so frequently meets with as home-made bread. As Hood says:
" Who has not met with home-made bread, A heavy compound of putty and lead ?"
Delicious coffee is only a matter of care, not expense — and indeed in America the cause of poor food, even in a boarding-house, is seldom in the quality of the articles so much as in the preparation and selection of them — yet an epicure can breakfast well with fine bread and butter and good coffee. And this leads me to another thing : many people think that to give too much attention to food shows gluttony. I have heard a lady say with a tone of virtuous rebuke, when the conversation turned from fashions to cooking, '' I give very little time to cooking, we eat to live only " — which is exactly what an animal does. Eating to live is mere feeding. Brillat- Savarin, an abstemious eater himself, among other witty things on the same topic says, " V animal se repait, Thomme mange, Vhomme d'^ esprit seul sait manger, ^^
Nine people out of ten, when they call a man an epicure, mean it as a sort of reproach, a man who is averse to every-day food, one whom plain fare would fail to satisfy ; but Grimod de la Reyniere, the most celebrated
4 Culture and Cooking,