FoodNet

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

1899

Page 9

Presented as published in 1899. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
My experience thus far in industrial education in our schools leads me to conclude that the course of instruction in sewing and cooking is beneficial to the pupils of our school, inasmuch as the systematic and philosophic methods laid down for both of these departments must necessarily result in inoculating habits of attention, neatness, and judgment which will benefit children not only in these special branches but in all others during school life, and which will prove of inestimable- value in after life. The following notes on the manual-training course of study appear in the annual report of the board of education following the one quoted from above: This highly interesting course has proved very successful, not only in the spread of the schools, but also in the satisfactory manner in which it has been carried on. One year ago the whole matter was tentative and many expressed grave doubts as to the feasibility; to-day it has been made in modified form the basis of the general course of study to be pursued by the schools in the city. The cooking school course, as outlined in the report for 1889, is as follows: Cooking. — Materials of the human body; waste and repair of tissues. Digestibility. — Cooking solid materials to prepare them for digestion. Nutritiveness. — Xutritive values of food; palatability. Food elements. — Mineral; starch and sugar; fats; albuminoids. Belated facts. — Physical effects of heat on albumen: on starch; on gluten, etc. ; proper temperatures for various purposes ; chemical effects of overheating and of yeast; important function of the sugar in flour. Utensils. — Their selection, use, and preservation. Purchasing food. — Discrimination as to wholesome and unwholesome j choice of parts. The -germ theory." — Applied to foods. Practical exercises in cooling. — These involve simple applications of facts and principles taught. In 1889, at the twenty-seventh annual convocation of the University of the State of New York, held July 9 to 11. an address on the possibili- ties and limitations of manual training in the public schools of Xew York City was presented by Prof. Edgar D. Shinier, then professor of philoso- phy at the New York City University and now associate superintendent of public schools for the borough of Manhattan and the Bronx, Xew York City. In this address Dr. Shinier first defines manual training as it was then accepted by the New York school authorities before outlining the possibilities and showing the limitations. In his report he alludes to the want of skilled teaching in manual training, and says this points toward the restoration of the old Satur- 15 day normal schools or some other means for the further training of teachers. He speaks of the voluntary conferences among the teachers after school as furnishing supplementary aid to individual effort. He says: