FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 169 



THE RELATION OF GOOD COOKING TO THE HEALTH OF THE 



FAMILY. 



MISS BELLE C. CROWE, INSTRUCTOR IN DOMESTIC SCIENCE, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, 



MICHIGAN. 



In discussing this topic a question presents itself at once. What is 

 good cooken'? Good cookery can be said to be the selection and prep- 

 aration of raw food and materials to suit the varied needs of a civilized 

 and refined people. Our standard in this matter must be the accepted 

 taste and most scientific knowledge of those w^ho have had the advant- 

 age of the broadest culture and most accurate scientific research; but 

 in view of the fact that there are many individual peculiarities of 

 digestion, so that we have the proverb, ''One man's meat is another 

 /uan's poison," it is unwise to think or speak dogmatically about what is 

 good in cookery. 



Having made the foregoing qualification, let me offer some opinions 

 as to what good cookery is in detail, or what one, whom we should be 

 justified in calling a good cook, would know. 



Mr. Ruskin said cookery means "the knowledge of all herbs and 

 fruits and balms and spices, and all that is healing and sweet in the 

 fields and groves and savory in meats; it means carefulness and in- 

 ventiveness, and willingness and readiness of appliances; it means the 

 economy of your grandmothers and the science of modern chemists; it 

 means much testing and no wasting; it means English thoroughness and 

 French art, and Arabian hospitality; and, in fine, it means that jou are 

 to be perfectly and always ladies — loafgivers." 



In othei' words, a good cook is not necessarily one who knows by heart 

 a long list of recipes, such as Susie's Spider Corn Cake, Sally Lunn, 

 Brown Betty, Aunt Caddie's Cake with Lily frosting, etc., and who is 

 able to serve these and many other dishes in a most toothsome and 

 attractive way; but she is one who knows the nature of food materials, 

 and can tell how food materials will behave themselves upon the appli- 

 cation of heat or cold; one who has learned a great deal about pro- 

 portions to be used to obtain desired effects, and w^ho by accurate ob- 

 servations and experiments knows what results will be gained by the 

 mixing of ingredients; she can trace the development of the more com- 

 plex dishes from the simpler forms of preparation, and in this way 

 grasps the possibilities in her materials and delights us with new dishes 

 with the greatest ease. She realizes what are the essential characteris- 

 tics of the different classes of foo.d, such as soups, desserts, vegetables 

 and meats. For instance, she knows that to serve vegetables so they 

 can be called well cooked she must have them of agreeable tenderness, 

 of sufficient flavor, and she also exercises taste in providing or with- 

 holding a sauce. Her sauce may be only melted butter, and the quan- 

 tity only as much as will merely moisten the vegetable, but she knows 

 that even such a simple sauce will give flavor and pleasant moisture, 

 and add nutriment. Chemists tell us that vegetables have very little 

 fat in their composition, but are largely water and starch, and the 

 good cook knows by using butter she is adding what the vegetable 



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