FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 171 



food value, and how easily it is digested, and because she serves it 

 well she makes many persons like it who scorn it as it is usually 

 cooked. 



The good cook knows how to use meat to get the most good from it. 

 She realizes that in cooking a soup, a stew and a roast she must 

 employ different methods, and she understands the reasons for the 

 differences. She is careful of the temperature she uses in the processes. 

 She knows the method that will soften tough fibers, which method will 

 develop the best flavors, what parts of the animal are suitable for a 

 given purpose, or how to make the most of any given cut. 



It has been said that good cooks are not clean, but that, is not the 

 kind that we are thinking of. The good cook is clean. She has learned 

 something about dangerous bacteria that may be present at any time 

 and everywhere, and she protects her food from flies and dust, roaches 

 and ants, and her dishes and cloths from putrid remnants of former 

 meals. It is no uncommon thing to find food served with an unpleasant 

 flavor that is foreign to itself and there is good reason to believe that 

 the bad flavor is due to carelessness in washing the dishes used in the 

 work. A greasy dishcloth is sufiicient to change the flavor of the 

 coffee if the soiled cloth has been used in the coffee pot. It is necessary 

 to have a great deal of fine feeling in the preservation and development 

 of good or bad flavors in food. 



She appreciates the value of a boiling or a very high temperature in 

 rendering food and dishes free from injurious germs. 



The good cook is economical, because she knows how to make the 

 most of left-over food, while at the same time, she uses judgment in 

 choosing between outlay of time and strength, and the cost of buying 

 fresh food which would require less time and labor. 



A good cook pays respect to the chemical composition of the food in 

 making her bills of fare, so that she may serve well balanced meals; 

 that is, the fats, protein and carbohydrates would be in nearly correct 

 proportions. She knows that some foods are chiefly used as tissue 

 builders and repairers of waste, while others give us energy and heat, 

 and at less cost than the tissue builders could give us energy and heat. 



In this connection, I may say, she knows better than to believe many 

 of the extravagant statements made by manufacturers of breakfast 

 cereals, respecting the wonderfully concentrated character and high 

 value of their respective preparations. She will not put down to us 

 four teaspoonfuls of Grapenuts and tell us that we have enough to 

 support us through half a day's work, or try to make us believe that we 

 are as well provisioned as if she had served us a rich, juicy beefsteak. 



The good cook does not think that diet can ever be a matter of no 

 importance or that anything is good enough so long as hunger does not 

 trouble us, or our livers do not rebel. 



I have not mentioned the ethical requirements essential in a good 

 cook. She should not be arrogant and make all the other members of 

 the family afraid of her. The training of a cook which does not con- 

 template the ethical nature and its improvement is sadly lacking. 



I have recited a few of the virtues of a good cook. Sometimes house- 

 holders are rash enough to expect many of these virtues and much of 

 this knowledge for sums of money varying from |10 to |30 a month; 

 or perhaps in the case of a wife and daughter, for board and clothes. 



