SEASONINGS. 363 



make of them, with the help of other flavors, an endless variety of 

 dishes. 



" An American traveling on the continent of Europe becomes ac- 

 quainted with many new dishes and tastes ; and although not all of 

 them are to his liking, he must conclude that our cookery, compared, 

 for instance, with that of the French, is very monotonous. To be sure, 

 we may have the advantage of the European in that our markets offer 

 us a greater variety of natural foods, especially fruits, each having a 

 flavor of its own, and this fact makes us somewhat more independent 

 of the art of the cook; but still we have need for every lesson of this 

 sort, and especially is this the case with the poor, who must keep to the 

 cheapest of food materials, which are not in themselves rich in flavor. 



" Spices and other flavors, when not used to excess, stimulate our 

 digestive organs to appropriate more easily the food to which they are 

 added; their agreeable odor starts the digestive juices, both in the 

 mouth and in the stomach ; and their flavors, acting on the palate, have 

 the same effect. 



" The more common spices and flavors, as the housewife uses these 

 things, are salt, pepper, mustard, cinnamon and mace, nutmeg, cloves, 

 ginger, caraway and coriander seeds, vanilla, and many volatile oils, 

 such as those contained in the rinds of lemons and oranges; and to 

 this list we must add certain vegetables, as the horse-radish and various 

 members of the onion family, the caper and nasturtium seeds, and the 

 aromatic herbs. 



" All these have their use and their abuse. Salt is hardly thought 

 of in this list, so necessary do we consider it; and its use is well enough 

 governed by our palate, though no doubt we over rather than under 

 salt our food. Pepper is also in nearly every household used to excess, 

 being added to too many dishes. The pungent mustard should be still 

 more sparingly used; but a little of it adds relish to a salad or a meat 

 sauce, and goes especially well with certain vegetables, as beans. Cin- 

 namon, mace, and nutmeg, we use principally with sweet dishes, but 

 nutmeg makes a nice variety in certain meat stews and in croquettes; 

 foreign cooks use it far too much to suit our taste. Almost our only 

 use of the caraway and coriander seeds is in cookies ; try the former in 

 a potato soup for variety. Ginger seems to go well with Indian meal 

 in pudding or porridge, and with molasses wherever used. 



" To give the uses for onions and for the aromatic herbs would be 

 too long a task. The latter can all be bought in a dried state very 



