232 FISH CULTUEE. 



matters — ^particularly of anything so very low as 

 cooking — is scouted indignantly. How can a lady 

 who murders Mendelssohn or Beethoven five or six 

 hours per diem, who destroys crayons hy the fasces, 

 or the nose upon Aunt Sally, or even longsuffering 

 Time in The Park, for sundry other hours, &c. &c., be 

 expected to hestow a thought upon anything so 

 utterly useless, degrading, and out of her sphere? 

 And thus this most vital matter, which has so much 

 to do with the health and peace of families in detail, 

 and the wellbeing even of nations in the aggregate, 

 is left to the ignorant stupidity of the modem 

 English servant, whose habits in respect to cookery 

 are, for the most part, of so wasteful a nature as to 

 be almost criminal. It is not too much to say, that 

 of all the food cooked in England one-fourth is 

 wasted, utterly wasted — thrown to the dust-hole and 

 the dogs. I could devote whole pages to the useful 

 consideration of this subject, but I am compelled to 

 confine my attention here to fish only. 



There are many fish, which inhabit both salt and 

 fresh water, which we now reject as worthless ; as if 

 anything which an Allwise Providence has sent for 

 our use could be worthless. The reason that we reject 

 these fish is because we do not know how to cook 

 them, or what particular use to put them to. The very 



