170 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



lacks, and is thereby serving food that is more complete for nutritive 

 purposes that it would be without the butter or other sauce. 



The intelligent cook realizes that a soup or broth is a liquid food of 

 various consistencies, composed of water or milk and the flavors, solu- 

 ble extracts, and small solid pieces of meat, vegetables, eggs, pastes, 

 etc., with appropriate seasonings. A similar process in which cereals 

 alone are used would produce a gruel. Applying such a general 

 definition of soups, she can make an infinite variety, and is largely inde- 

 pendent of the cook books. She appreciates the advantage of serving 

 a variety of foods and dishes, because it cultivates the taste of the 

 family for many different kinds of food, and they are not apt to be so 

 hard to please as those who have not acquired a taste for more than a 

 very few dishes. Valuable resources are often allowed to go to waste 

 because the one who does the cooking has not taught others to acquire 

 a taste for many different things. Mushrooms that sell as delicacies 

 at |1 a pound or even more in the large markets, are allowed to go to 

 waste by many who could have them for the trouble of picking them. 

 Watercress, little fish, parts of beef, veal and lamb, are all wasted by 

 many who could have them for nothing. 



Have you ever noticed how many pages of the ordinary cook book 

 are devoted to cake recipes? There are scores of rules oftentimes. 

 Now, a good cook knows that there are about two or three recipes for 

 cake and that the others are variations of those two or three mother 

 rules. How simple it is to divide cakes into two classes, thus: cakes 

 with butter, cakes without butter. The only rule a cook needs to know 

 for the first class is the I, II, III, IV cake recipe, which she can vary 

 to her heart's content. Then for the cakes without butter, if she mem- 

 orizes a sponge cake or an angel cake recipe, she can ring similar 

 changes on this other rule. 



The good cook knows how much baking powder is necessary for a 

 cup of flour, how many eggs it will take to thicken a' pint of milk to 

 a baked custard consistency, how many teaspoons of cornstarch will be 

 required to thicken a cup of liquid to a sauce consistency, so that she 

 is master of the rules and not in bondage to the cook book. 



The good cook knows that yeast is a very tiny plant which grows and 

 needs attention like a geranium, and she also knows under what con- 

 ditions it will grow best; or, if she would wish to retard the bread- 

 making process, she knows the safe limit in applying cold, thereby 

 relieving her mind of the terrors that too often attend the making of 

 bread. 



She is one who knows that water cannot be made hotter by adding 

 fuel or turning up the gas to make it boil harder after it is once at the 

 boiling point. She knows that butter can be made hotter than water 

 or milk, so that, in making a sauce of butter, flour and milk she under- 

 stands what advantage is gained in heating the butter first and adding 

 the wetting last. She knows that lard can be made hotter than butter, 

 while olive oil will rise to the highest heat before burning of all the fats 

 used in the kitchen. *' 



The good cook can prepare rice so the grains are left comparatively 

 dry and separate, and she would be ashamed to send to the table the 

 pasty mess that is too often presented. She is likely, too, to serve 

 rice frequently, because she realizes how inexpensive it is, its high 



