FoodNet

History and present status of instruction in cooking in the public schools of New York city

1899

Page 29

Presented as published in 1899. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
The manual may seem perhaps to be too scientific for girls in our grammar schools, but we who teach from it are convinced that it is not. Many thousands of these girls never go beyond the grammar schools, and here or not at all they must be trained for the business they hope to follow through life, and this business is home making. Home making is the business of women by Divine right. In an age when all business processes are being put upon scientific bases, why should we not teach our girls that science bears an important relation to housekeeping in a variety of ways I The better they understand the philosophy of the ordinary things of life the better they will perform them and the easier it will be to fill their minds with a sense of the dignity of labor at home. The more they learn of the chemistry of cookery the fewer failures there will be. A girl should be taught the nutritive value of food as well as its cost : the sanitation of the home as well as its tidiness. Such training must produce prudent, economical, and thrifty housewives. They are much needed in America. GENERAL REMARKS. Many visitors from all parts of the country and from the various organizations and institutions in our city have been entertained by the supervisor, and all have 39 expressed themselves as pleased with the manner in which this branch of manual training is being taught in the public schools. Teachers have been gratified by the assurances of parents that the work was of practical value in their homes. Numerous letters of inquiry and congratulation have been received and answered. The library at the New York University has been placed at the disposal of the supervisor and teachers of cookery. All Government bulletins relating to food and nutrition have been furnished to the teachers at the request of the supervisor. The schools in London and Paris were visited by the supervisor during the summer of 1897 and reports of visits given to the city superintendent and to the committee on instruction. A resolution was passed by this committee, at the request of the supervisor, that the number in classes should not exceed 30. Most of the principals divided the classes exceeding that number. Visits have been made by the supervisor and teachers of cookery to various food manufactories, rlour mills, etc. ; also to the aquarium and museum of Natural History. The supervisor visited Pratt Institute, Philadelphia Cooking School, Teachers' College, and the food exhibit at Philadelphia for the benefit of her work. This report will be closed with some examples of the lessons in cookiug given by teachers in the New York schools during the past year, as well as of the work (written exercises and drawings) of pupils performed in connection with these lessons. This work was based upon subjects given to the teachers by the supervisor from the manual referred to before, and is a demonstration of the progress that has been made in a comparatively short time toward raising the dignity of home science by making the basis of the teaching the elementary principles of the science of food and nutrition and keeping the practical work of cooking in its proper place as a laboratory demonstration of the principles taught. U. S Dept. of Agn , Bui. 56: Office of Expt. Stations. Plate 1. Girl cooking. Drawn by E. A. C. APPENDIX. LESSONS, EXERCISES, AND DRAWINGS FROM THE COURSE IN