but good. Details of stock-making explained. What to do with " left-overs." New-old secrets for using them. Why the cook gets fat. Braising, the quintessence of exquisite cookery, yet old as the hills. How to have herbs close at hand and always fresh. Garlic in poetical phase. How "left-overs" of meat are used in foreign kitchens. More hints about stock. Hash incognito. The many ways of wasting food prevalent in American homes. What a plain cook should know. The accomplishments of a ^cy one. The glazing of meats and pastry, how done. Concluding with many little hints for the eager amateur. Bills of Fare from Many Nations 249 Index 255 ^ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Sweetbread Salad^ Austria Frontispiece (See page 1^2,) Onion Soup with Cheese, Italy Page 19 Matelote of Fish in Casserole, Normandy . . . . *' 39 Baked Sole, Normandy ** 43 Leg of Mutton, Gascony *' 68 Cannelons and Batons de Jakob, Marseilles . . . . '' 77 {See also page 167.) Braised Sweetbreads, Dauphiny ** 87 Veal and Mushrooms, Germany "93 Mock Rabbit, Germany **iio Asparagus, as cooked in Spain "132 Asparagus and Shrimp Salad, Germany '' '55 Bath Buns, England "171 Compote of Apples, Cherbourg ** 189 XI INTRODUCTION In the agreeable but arduous task of gathering these recipes, many of which are unknown to Americans of three generations, a great deal of history and romance have been sifted through. Lack of space prevents telling the story of each dish and its great days, how it came to exist and for whom. Kings and queens, brave and fair, have supped on these, or have gone to battle or execution, thus and so. Starving peasants, lend- ing glory to monarchy, through taxation and service, have invented certain soups and ragouts to eke out a sad and miserable life. Some dishes are peculiar to certain countries as a whole, their origin being obscure, although each was once known to a city or village or even a family, who kept it inviolate for centuries. Old housewives with manuscript books cherish recipes transmitted through generations but often brought from near-by provinces through intermarriage. ' It was not considered needful to include within this book recipes for Lyonnaise potatoes, Spanish bun, French crullers, Neapolitan ice-cream, Welsh ••• xiu Introduction rarebit, etc. ; — almost any cook-book gives them. Nor is it necessary to offer recipes which are ex- travagant or unpalatable or requiring ingredients not procurable in this country. But many more might be included save for these reasons, so vast is the material. If the number of meats and vege- tables seem limited, remember that this is a land of plenty, and that poverty of purse and soil have forced Europeans to use what we consider miser- able fare, or else to cook the same thing, such as eggs, in a hundred different styles. Famine and siege and plague have schooled the European housewife to cook the poorest parts of animals, to use all weeds and wildflowers, not harmful, in salads and soups and entrees. Foreign cookery books are, as a rule, unsatis- factory, the English being painfully naive, and the French too indefinite or too extravagant as regards quantities. It is hoped, therefore, that this little volume will fill a place between. Our cooking has been usually, so &r, too plain or too rich, insipid or spicy, without that delicate intelligent season- ing which foreign cookery economically represents. We have had, too, most of our servants from Ireland, the least creative of countries, who lived in huts, ate potatoes and oatmeal, and never saw any utensil but an iron kettle. xiv Introduction

AI-modernized reading of the original text

but good. Details of stock-making explained. What to do with " left-overs." New-old secrets for using them. Why the cook gets fat. Braising, the quintessence of exquisite cookery, yet old as the hills. How to have herbs close at hand and always fresh. Garlic in poetical phase. How "left-overs" of meat are used in foreign kitchens. More hints about stock. Hash incognito. The many ways of wasting food prevalent in American homes. What a plain cook should know. The accomplishments of a ^cy one. The glazing of meats and pastry, how done. Concluding with many little hints for the eager amateur. Bills of Fare from Many Nations 249 Index 255 ^ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Sweetbread Salad, Austria Frontispiece (See page 1^2,) Onion Soup with Cheese, Italy Page 19 Matelote of Fish in Casserole, Normandy . . . . *' 39 Baked Sole, Normandy ** 43 Leg of Mutton, Gascony *' 68 Cannelons and Batons de Jakob, Marseilles . . . . '' 77 {See also page 167.) Braised Sweetbreads, Dauphiny ** 87 Veal and Mushrooms, Germany "93 Mock Rabbit, Germany **iio Asparagus, as cooked in Spain "132 Asparagus and Shrimp Salad, Germany '' '55 Bath Buns, England "171 Compote of Apples, Cherbourg ** 189 INTRODUCTION In the agreeable but arduous task of gathering these recipes, many of which are unknown to Americans of three generations, a great deal of history and romance have been sifted through. Lack of space prevents telling the story of each dish and its great days, how it came to exist and for whom. Kings and queens, brave and fair, have supped on these, or have gone to battle or execution, thus and so. Starving peasants, lending glory to monarchy, through taxation and service, have invented certain soups and ragouts to eke out a sad and miserable life. Some dishes are peculiar to certain countries as a whole, their origin being obscure, although each was once known to a city or village or even a family, who kept it inviolate for centuries. Old housewives with manuscript books cherish recipes transmitted through generations but often brought from near-by provinces through intermarriage. ' It was not considered needful to include within this book recipes for Lyonnaise potatoes, Spanish bun, French crullers, Neapolitan ice-cream, Welsh ••• xiu Introduction rarebit, etc. ; — almost any cook-book gives them. Nor is it necessary to offer recipes which are extravagant or unpalatable or requiring ingredients not procurable in this country. But many more might be included save for these reasons, so vast is the material. If the number of meats and vegetables seem limited, remember that this is a land of plenty, and that poverty of purse and soil have forced Europeans to use what we consider miserable fare, or else to cook the same thing, such as eggs, in a hundred different styles. Famine and siege and plague have schooled the European housewife to cook the poorest parts of animals, to use all weeds and wildflowers, not harmful, in salads and soups and entrees. Foreign cookery books are, as a rule, unsatisfactory, the English being painfully naive, and the French too indefinite or too extravagant as regards quantities. It is hoped, therefore, that this little volume will fill a place between. Our cooking has been usually, so &r, too plain or too rich, insipid or spicy, without that delicate intelligent seasoning which foreign cookery economically represents. We have had, too, most of our servants from Ireland, the least creative of countries, who lived in huts, ate potatoes and oatmeal, and never saw any utensil but an iron kettle. Introduction

With a saucepan over the sea