1827.] Domestic Economy and Cookery. 29 



" That three pounds of one sort of meat may be had for the same price as one of 

 another " 



A proposition which, in justice to " the poor,*' we declare we think very 

 few of them would be hardy enough to contradict ; and assuring them that 



" They may make wholesome beer for themselves, at one-eighth of the price which 

 they pay for poisonous porter " 



A statement which we are afraid is perfectly untrue our " Domestic Econo- 

 mist" proceeds to break out into the^ following very eloquent but, to us, per- 

 fectly incomprehensible tirade : 



" In cookery, generalization has certainly been recommended, but very little prac- 

 tised; because that art, though indebted to some professional men, as Dr. Hill (MRS. 

 GLASSE), Dr. Hunter, and Dr. Kitchener for the three best cookery books we have 

 at present, engages still less than any other the attention of those, whose education 

 renders them best calculated to simplify and improve." 



Now, what the word "generalization" means hereunless as far as it is 

 exemplified by making Mrs. Glasse a "professional man" puzzles us almost as 

 much as it does to guess what we should understand by the following sen- 

 tence : 



" Not that cookery is in itself any ways inferior to many others," [other sciences, we 

 presume] "in what they" [those who are "calculated to improve"] pride them- 

 selves in excelling ; but they neglect it from the very reason that should have induced 

 them to lend their assistance to it namely, its universal practice ; and, in this consi- 

 deration, I perhaps may be excused when I say, that I treat more ofuniversals, than the 

 Jew who have restricted that term to themselves," &c. 



Now these " universals " are worse to us than the " generals :" but we 

 go on. 



" It is worse than ridiculous to hear the English boasting of their charitable and 

 benevolent institutions, and valuing themselves on a comparison with the virtuous and 

 unobtrusive frugality of the French, when there is twice as much wasted by their 

 menials as would, if fitly administered, maintain in honest independence the wretches 

 whose name is a sanction for drunkenness in a tavern, or dissipation at a masquerade !" 



What are these persons of what class who have a claim to be " maintained 

 in honest independence" and whose " names " are "a " sanction " for " drunken- 

 ness" in one place, and " dissipation" in another ? for we profess ourselves at a 

 loss even to imagine ! 



The lady then proceeds to ascribe the " manifest decline of cookery," visible in 

 the present age, to " the fall of the Roman Catholic religion;" as the frequency 

 of fasts, meagre days, &c. " forced the people to exert their ingenuity." In 

 which, if there were any force, the science of cookery ought, by all analogy, 

 to have been higher, all over the world, three centuries ago, than it is now ;- 



higher now in Ireland than in England; higher in Italy than in France; and 



highest of all in Spain where it io as nearly as can be detestable. The fol- 

 lowing exquisitely probable anecdote is here appended in the shape of a note. 



" The monks on the Continent at this moment are reported the best of cooks. I 

 may say that I never saw a better dressed or better served dinner, than one that was 

 begged, cooked, and served, by a mendicant friar. He came to Rome once a w r eek, 

 went his rounds, and brought his gleanings to an abbate who patronized him. The door 

 was then shut, the outer cloak thrown off, and half a dozen bags, plump as their 

 carrier, displayed themselves to the enraptured eyes of the benevolent host. Suffice it 

 to say that, for a dinner of ten dishes, no one ingredient was wanting, not even oil. 

 The receipt for one of them baked curds I regret I have lost. I shall refer to the 

 receipts for a quarter of kid, dressed a V Isaac, which was truly savoury. I had an 

 opportunity of witnessing several sights of the kind, being introduced by the friendly 

 abbate, as the Soretta /" &c. 



Truly has it been said, that travellers do see strange things. But this story is 

 yet nothing to one which follows. We are now on the fitness and necessity 

 of ladies informing themselves, as to their husbands' affairs. 



" If example be required, I will produce that of a lady, of more than patrician birth, 



