FoodNet

Soups, savouries, sweets, with a chapter on breads

1889

Page 2

Presented as published in 1889. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
for herself. The receipts here to be found are, for the most part, either original or revivals of dishes well-known a hundred years ago. Each one has been personally tried, not once, but many times. Great pains have been taken to give the methods of each receipt so clearly and fully that if the instruc- tions are exactly followed, even the novice may succeed at the first trial ; and with this object in view I must beg the experienced cook to excuse me if occasionally they seem a little prolix. In addition to receipts, I have given a few everyday menus for the assistance of young housekeepers, to whom the arrangement of dinner in a tasteful and economical way offers * Your usual style of meal — that is, plenteous, comfortable and in its perfection — should be thai to which you welcome your friends, cls it is thai of which you partake yourself^ — Thackeray. IX INTRODUCTION. * Teaching how fair This earth were, if all living things be linked In friendliness, and common use of foods. Bloodless and pure* — Edwin Arnold. a problem which the ordinary cookery-book does little to solve. The progress of dietetic science has so rapidly brought vegetarian dishes into vogue, that in many circles a dinner-menu would be in- complete without them, and, therefore, I have included a number of such receipts. It is singular that no better name than vegetarian- ism has been devised for a system of diet which commonly includes fruit, grain, milk, cream, butter, eggs, honey, in fact every kind of nourishment, with the exception only of meat. Dishes which take the place of meat in their amount and kind of nourishment, and soups which are the equivalent of gravy soups, are here given, and from these the good housewife Their meat is digested, they nier are molested. No sickness doth them assail,* *0ld English Ballads.* INTRODUCTION. ''' Good friend,'' quoth he, *' I hunger:* ^'AiasT* the shepherd said, *' My scrip no more contcdneth but one little loaf of bread,** ' Lockhart's 'Spanish Ballads.' can easily make a selection for each meal. I n the nursery, also, as children have often a real dislike to meat, these vegetarian receipts will be found both tasty and wholesome. Well-made wheatmeal bread should be found on the table at every meal. Those who do not bake at home can now obtain it from most of the good bakers in London or other large towns. The town housewife must keep a good supply of dried herbs, roots, and such veget- ables as will not spoil by storing, as they are largely u$ed in the receipts for entries, soups, and sauces. The parcels post and other means of communication recently opened have made it easier than formerly to obtain * And beheld in the kitchen beyond, salads in stacks and faggots ; salad of lettuce, scUad of cress and endive, salad of boiled coleworts, saJad of pickled coleworts, salad of angelica, scUad of scurvy-wort, and seven salads more ; for potatoes were not as yet, Ch. Kingsley. xi INTRODUCTION. * / have dined at an aldermarCs boards I have drunk with a German lord, But richer was Celandine's awn pati Than Sir William's soup on Christmas Day J* — Praed. country produce, such as cream, butter, and eggs ; and I would advise our young house- wife, to whom economy is of importance, to make permanent arrangements with her country friends for the supply of these articles. Finally, I commend my little book to the kindly notice of its readers. It has been pre- pared for them in the hope of sparing them some of the difficulties and anxieties which, as mistress of a large household, have fallen to my lot during many years' experience. If I have in any way smoothed the culinary diffi- culties of young housewives, and if I have added to the resources of experienced ones, I shall have fulfilled my desire in writing it. H. T. B.