Notes on the London Cookery Exhibition of 1885. / • PREFACE, ItAB book is in many respects a continu- ation of the preceding volumes in the series, It fulfills the designs that were intended but not finished before, more particularly in the second part which deals with the cost of keeping up a table. It is not an argument either for or against high prices, but it embodies in print for the first time the methods of close-cutting management which a million of successful boarding- house and hotel-keepers are already prac- tising, in order that another million who are not successful may learn, if they will, wherein their competitors have the advant- age. At the time when the following in- troduction was written, which was about four years before the finish, I was just setting out, while indulging a rambling propensity, to find out why it was that my hotel books which were proving admirably adapted to the use of the ten hotels of a resort town were voted "too rich for the blood" of the four hundred boarding-houses ; also, it was a question how so many of these houses running at low prices are enabled to make money as easily as the hotels which have a much larger income. At the same time some statistician published a statement that attracted attention showing that the vast majority of the peopje of this land have to live on an income of less than fifty cents a day. At the same time also an English author published a little book, which, however, I have not seen and did not need, with the title of "How to live on sixpence a day," (twelve cents) which was presumptive evidence that it could be done. In quest of information on these points I went around considerably and found a good many "Mrs. Tingees" who were not keep- ing boarding-houses, and I honor them for the surpassing skill that makes the fifty cents a day do such wonders ; but the right vein was not struck until the opportunity occurred to do both the buying and using of provisions from the very first meal in a Summer Boarding House. In reference to unfinished work I take the liberty here of saying that the bills of fare in this book with the quantities and propK)rtions and relative cost from the con- tinuation and complete illustration of an article entitled "The Art of Catering" in f/o/el Meat Cooking. Knowing how much to cook, how much to charge, how to pre- vent waste and all such quettlons raii«e« there are carried out to an answer in thew pages. In regard to the use of French name* for dishes it is necessary that a statement should be made. A great reform has taken place in the last ten years in the com- position of hotel bills of fare, and the subject matter of these books having been widely diffused by publication in the hotel news- papers, has undoubtedly had much to do with the improvement that is now observ- able. My own design was, however, to ex- plain French terms, give their origin and proper spelling, and to that end I had a mass of anecdotes, historical mention and other such material collected to make the explanations interesting. As a preliminary, I began exposing the absurdities com- mitted by ignorant cooks and others trying to write French, and before this had pro- ceeded far the newspapers took up and advocated the idea that French terms should be abolished altogether.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Notes on the London Cookery Exhibition of 1885. / • PREFACE, This book is in many respects a continuation of the preceding volumes in the series, It fulfills the designs that were intended but not finished before, more particularly in the second part which deals with the cost of keeping up a table. It is not an argument either for or against high prices, but it embodies in print for the first time the methods of close-cutting management which a million of successful boardinghouse and hotel-keepers are already practising, in order that another million who are not successful may learn, if they will, wherein their competitors have the advantage. At the time when the following introduction was written, which was about four years before the finish, I was just setting out, while indulging a rambling propensity, to find out why it was that my hotel books which were proving admirably adapted to the use of the ten hotels of a resort town were voted "too rich for the blood" of the four hundred boarding-houses ; also, it was a question how so many of these houses running at low prices are enabled to make money as easily as the hotels which have a much larger income. At the same time some statistician published a statement that attracted attention showing that the vast majority of the people of this land have to live on an income of less than fifty cents a day. At the same time also an English author published a little book, which, however, I have not seen and did not need, with the title of "How to live on sixpence a day," (twelve cents) which was presumptive evidence that it could be done. In quest of information on these points I went around considerably and found a good many "Mrs. Tingees" who were not keeping boarding-houses, and I honor them for the surpassing skill that makes the fifty cents a day do such wonders ; but the right vein was not struck until the opportunity occurred to do both the buying and using of provisions from the very first meal in a Summer Boarding House. In reference to unfinished work I take the liberty here of saying that the bills of fare in this book with the quantities and propK)rtions and relative cost from the continuation and complete illustration of an article entitled "The Art of Catering" in f/o/el Meat Cooking. Knowing how much to cook, how much to charge, how to pre- vent waste and all such questions raised there are carried out to an answer in these pages. In regard to the use of French name* for dishes it is necessary that a statement should be made. A great reform has taken place in the last ten years in the composition of hotel bills of fare, and the subject matter of these books having been widely diffused by publication in the hotel newspapers, has undoubtedly had much to do with the improvement that is now observable. My own design was, however, to explain French terms, give their origin and proper spelling, and to that end I had a mass of anecdotes, historical mention and other such material collected to make the explanations interesting. As a preliminary, I began exposing the absurdities committed by ignorant cooks and others trying to write French, and before this had proceeded far the newspapers took up and advocated the idea that French terms should be abolished altogether.

Cooking for profit