the net contents have been so subtly reduced that soon we're ac-
tually paying double the original price without noticing it. And
here the profitable fad of reducing comes in. The owners of our
staffs of life have taken advantage of this reducing rage to make
everything smaller (except the containers), on the theory that the
smaller the portion the healthier, or the more they reduce what we
get for our money, the better off we are.
XII. Dishes for Knife^ Fork and Spoon
A false notion of elegance, probably instigated by penurious
restaurant owners, has gradually depleted an historic class of fine
family dishes until even home versions are often quite useless for
either nourishment or enjoyment. Our soups come on the table
strained, or with little bits of this and that, chips of carrot, two or
three green peas to a plate, infinitesimal crumbs of meat, floating in
a weak hot liquid just to give the illusion of what a really good
soup might have been made of. Our stews often are served with
scarcely enough gravy to moisten a crushed potato, just because
magazines for real "ladies" require that gravy must be mixed with
solids on the plate in such a manner that it can be gathered up with
a fork. Spoons for this purpose are strictly taboo. We must eat
daintily and follow the rules, regardless of heartiness and pleasure.
Away with the great dishes intimately eaten with knife, fork and
spoon — all three.
While European workers and all gypsies and artists enjoy well-
balanced meals in one hearty course eaten with any and every
kind of table gear at hand, we as a nation have fallen under the spell
96
DISHES FOR KNIFE, FORK AND SPOON 97
of many-course meals with special forks for salad, bread and butter
knives and tiny ice cream shovels, just one silly tool after another
with which to toy with miniature "courses." So nowadays people
who can least afford it will start a dinner, especially if there's
company, with half a pound of assorted synthetic sausage from the
delicatessen, followed by a thin soup, maybe more costly because
it's out of cans, then an entree before the regular meat dish, and
always a characterless salad with a dab of bottled mayonnaise,
probably made of cottonseed oil, and finally a fancy dessert and
coffee. This, naturally, is the most wasteful procedure possible.
So we say — a curse on the '* course" system. All of those Httle
dabs put together don't make nearly as much of a meal as one big
dish well-rounded out with meat, vegetables and the soup or gravy
that comes with it, or one big salad, either of them accompanied
by good, well-knit bread, not this light-as-chicken-feathers white
stuff. Such a simple meal is the cheapest that any family can in-
vest in, even though it actually costs more than any one course of
the conventional meal.
Page 51
Presented as published in 1938. 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
the net contents have been so subtly reduced that soon we're actually paying double the original price without noticing it. And here the profitable fad of reducing comes in. The owners of our staffs of life have taken advantage of this reducing rage to make everything smaller (except the containers), on the theory that the smaller the portion the healthier, or the more they reduce what we get for our money, the better off we are.
XII. Dishes for Knife, Fork and Spoon
A false notion of elegance, probably instigated by penurious restaurant owners, has gradually depleted an historic class of fine family dishes until even home versions are often quite useless for either nourishment or enjoyment. Our soups come on the table strained, or with little bits of this and that, chips of carrot, two or three green peas to a plate, infinitesimal crumbs of meat, floating in a weak hot liquid just to give the illusion of what a really good soup might have been made of. Our stews often are served with scarcely enough gravy to moisten a crushed potato, just because magazines for real "ladies" require that gravy must be mixed with solids on the plate in such a manner that it can be gathered up with a fork. Spoons for this purpose are strictly taboo. We must eat daintily and follow the rules, regardless of heartiness and pleasure. Away with the great dishes intimately eaten with knife, fork and spoon — all three.
While European workers and all gypsies and artists enjoy wellbalanced meals in one hearty course eaten with any and every kind of table gear at hand, we as a nation have fallen under the spell
DISHES FOR KNIFE, FORK AND SPOON 97
of many-course meals with special forks for salad, bread and butter knives and tiny ice cream shovels, just one silly tool after another with which to toy with miniature "courses." So nowadays people who can least afford it will start a dinner, especially if there's company, with half a pound of assorted synthetic sausage from the delicatessen, followed by a thin soup, maybe more costly because it's out of cans, then an entree before the regular meat dish, and always a characterless salad with a dab of bottled mayonnaise, probably made of cottonseed oil, and finally a fancy dessert and coffee. This, naturally, is the most wasteful procedure possible. So we say — a curse on the '* course" system. All of those Httle dabs put together don't make nearly as much of a meal as one big dish well-rounded out with meat, vegetables and the soup or gravy that comes with it, or one big salad, either of them accompanied by good, well-knit bread, not this light-as-chicken-feathers white stuff. Such a simple meal is the cheapest that any family can invest in, even though it actually costs more than any one course of the conventional meal.