Table of Contents In preparing a new and carefully revised edition of this, my first work on general cookery, I have introduced improvements, corrected errors, and added new receipts, that I trust will, on trial, be found satisfactory. The success of the book (proved by its immense and increasing circulation,) affords conclusive evidence that it has obtained the approbation of a large number of my countrywomen; many of whom have informed me that it has made practical housewives of young ladies who have entered into married life with no other acquirements than a few showy accomplishments. Gentlemen, also, have told me of great improvements in the family-table, after presenting their wives with this manual of domestic cookery; and that, after a morning devoted to the fatigues of business, they no longer find themselves subjected to the annoyance of an ill-dressed dinner.
No man (or woman either) ought to be incapable of distinguishing bad eatables from good ones. Yet, I have heard some few ladies boast of that incapacity, as something meritorious, and declare that they considered the quality, the preparation, and even the taste of food, as things entirely beneath the attention of a rational being; their own minds being always occupied with objects of far greater importance.
Let no man marry such a woman.[A] If indifferent to her own food, he will find her still more indifferent to his. A wife who cares not, or knows not what a table ought to be, always has bad cooks; for she cannot distinguish a bad one from a good one, dislikes change, and wonders how her husband can attach any importance to so trifling a circumstance as his dinner. Yet, though, for the sake of "preserving the peace," he may bring himself to pass over, as "trifling circumstances," the defects of his daily repasts, he will find himself not a little mortified, when, on inviting a friend to dinner, he finds his table disgraced by washy soup, poultry half raw, gravy unskimmed, and vegetables undrained; to say nothing of sour bread, ponderous puddings, curdled custards tasting of nothing, and tough pastry.
Let all housekeepers remember that there is no possibility of producing nice dishes without a liberal allowance of good ingredients. "Out of nothing, nothing can come," is a homely proverb, but a true one. And so is the ancient caution against being "penny-wise and pound-foolish." By judicious management, and by taking due care that nothing is wasted or thrown away which might be used to advantage, one family will live "excellently well," at no greater cost in the end than another family is expending on a table that never has a good thing upon it.
A sufficiency of wholesome and well-prepared food is absolutely necessary to the preservation of health and strength, both of body and mind. Ill-fed children rarely grow up with vigorous constitutions; and dyspepsia, in adults, is as frequently produced by eating food that is unpalatable or disagreeable to their taste, as by indulging too much in things they peculiarly relish. For those who possess the means of living well, it is a false (and sometimes fatal) economy to live badly; particularly when there is a lavish expenditure in fine clothes, fine furniture, and other ostentations, only excusable when not purchased at the expense of health and comfort.
Eliza Leslie.
Philadelphia, Jan. 16, 1851.
FOOTNOTES:
Table of Contents -
My instructress, the late Mrs. Goodfellow, remarked, in allusion to the dullness or silliness of some of her pupils, "It requires a head even to make cakes."
[A]
Table of Contents WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.
We recommend to all families that they should keep in the house a pair of scales, (one of the scales deep enough to hold flour, sugar, &c., conveniently,) and a set of tin measures; as accuracy in proportioning the ingredients is indispensable to success in cookery. It is best to have the scales permanently fixed to a small beam projecting (for instance) from one of the shelves of the store-room. This will preclude the frequent inconvenience of their getting twisted, unlinked, and otherwise out of order; a common consequence of putting them in and out of their box, and carrying them from place to place. The weights (of which there should be a set from two pounds to a quarter of an ounce) ought carefully to be kept in the box, that none of them may be lost or mislaid.
A set of tin measures (with small spouts or lips) from a gallon down to half a jill, will be found very convenient in every kitchen; though common pitchers, bowls, glasses, &c. may be substituted. It is also well to have a set of wooden measures from a bushel to a quarter of a peck.
Let it be remembered, that of liquid measure-
Two jills are half a pint.
Two pints-one quart.
Four quarts-one gallon.
Of dry measure-
Half a gallon is a quarter of a peck.
One gallon-half a peck.
Two gallons-one peck.
Four gallons-half a bushel.
Eight gallons-one bushel.
About twenty-five drops of any thin liquid will fill a common sized tea-spoon.
Four table-spoonfuls or half a jill, will fill a common wine glass.
Four wine glasses will fill a half-pint or common tumbler, or a large coffee-cup.
A quart black bottle holds in reality about a pint and a half.
Of flour, butter, sugar, and most articles used in cakes and pastry, a quart is generally about equal in quantity to a pound avoirdupois, (sixteen ounces.) Avoirdupois is the weight designated throughout this book.
Ten eggs generally weigh one pound before they are broken.
A table-spoonful of salt is generally about one ounce.
Table of Contents Soups; including those of Fish Fish; various ways of dressing Shell Fish; Oysters, Lobsters, Crabs, &c. Beef; including pickling and smoking it Veal Mutton and Lamb Pork; including Bacon, Sausages, &c. Venison; Hares, Rabbits, &c. Poultry and Game Gravy and Sauces Store Fish Sauces; Catchups, &c. Flavoured Vinegars Vegetables; including Indian Corn, Tomatas, Mushrooms, &c. Eggs; usual ways of dressing, including Omelets Pickling Sweetmeats; including Preserves and Jellies Pastry and Puddings; also Pancakes, Dumplings, Custards, &c. Syllabubs; also Ice Creams and Blancmange Cakes; including various sweet Cakes and Gingerbread Warm Cakes for Breakfast and Tea; also, Bread, Yeast,
Butter, Cheese, Tea, Coffee, &c. Domestic Liquors; including home-made Beer, Wines, Shrub,
Cordials, &c. Preparations for the Sick Perfumery Miscellaneous Receipts Additional Receipts Animals used as Butchers' Meat Index
Table of Contents Table of Contents GENERAL REMARKS.
Table of Contents Always use soft water for making soup, and be careful to proportion the quantity of water to that of the meat. Somewhat less than a quart of water to a pound of meat, is a good rule for common soups. Rich soups, intended for company, may have a still smaller allowance of water.
Soup should always be made entirely of fresh meat that has not been previously cooked. An exception to this rule may sometimes be made in favour of the remains of a piece of roast beef that has been very much under-done in roasting. This may be added to a good piece of raw meat. Cold ham, also, may be occasionally put into white soups.
Soup made of cold meat has always a vapid, disagreeable taste, very perceptible through all the seasoning, and which nothing indeed can disguise. Also, it will be of a bad, dingy colour. The juices of the meat having been exhausted by the first cooking, the undue proportion of watery liquid renders it, for soup, indigestible and unwholesome, as well as unpalatable. As there is little or no nutriment to be derived from soup made with cold meat, it is better to refrain from using it for this purpose, and to...
