Cooking and castle-building

suitability of sounds or colors. The idea has somehow obtained that it is improper or undignified for intelligent men and women to make a study of gastronomy. The cultivated stomach, however, appreciates contrast and harmonies in taste as keenly as the cultivated eye or ear does in color or sound ; and I am satisfied, in my own mind, that the stomach is as much jarred and disarranged by inharmonious tastes as either eye or ear by inharmonious sights or sounds. The stomach is the most important, as well as the most delicate, organ in a human being. It is not merely a receptacle for stuff that has tickled the palate, or for food that will sustain life. It is the workshop in which are prepared all the materials essential to the building up of body and l)rain, and its needs and demands should be treated with thoughtful consideration." o " Cousin Kate, don't forget our rice pudding," said Alice. "Ah, no ! Let me help your mother. See, as the spoon cuts through the light brown skin, a rich, creamy substance appears ; not of a pure white, but with a faint tinge of salmon. Each grain of rice is perfect in form and of large size, as if expanded to its utmost capacity ; yet so soft that the slightest pressure is sufficient to crush it. This pudding is made of milk, rice, and sugar. It contains no raisins, butter, or water. The pro- portions are these : Eight measures of new milk, one measure of rice, one measure of sugar. If desired, it may be flavored with lemon, vanilla, or nutmeg, and a small pinch of salt should be added. Place it on the range, where it will heat slowly. Stir occasionally while the rice is swelling, and when the milk is boiling hot, place the pudding in a moderate oven and bake for one hour, or until the rice is quite soft. Do not stir the pudding after placing it in the oven, but try to ascertain if the rice is done before removing it. Serve cold. This simple pudding, I think, nine persons out of ten would prefer to those messes and mixtures compounded of boiled rice, eggs, fruit, and butter, and served warm with sauce. Yet the average cook takes extra pains to make the expensive, indigestible dish, while this simple, wholesome, and delicious dish seems to be almost unknown. The error of supposing that nearly every kind of food is improved by the addition of butter seems to be as wide-spread as it is damaging and false. While some dishes are improved for most tastes, by the judicious use of good butter, a vastly greater number are spoiled by the injudicious use of bad butter. And here I wish to say emphatically, that I know of no judicious use to which bad butter can be applied by a housewife, except that of making it into soap. To put bad butter into pastry, puddings, and vegetables, does not make the butter good. It simply spoils the pastry, puddings, and vegetables. Many dishes are overdosed with sweet butter ; while others in which it it is usually found are much better without it. American cooks have entirely too much faith in the virtue and potency of grease."