THE COOKING OF VEGETABLES. 



55 



THE COOKING OF VEGETABLES. 



By Dr. Bonavia. 



It is not always easy to give recipes for cooking vegetables 

 without an accompaniment of meat, fish, or eggs. Some vege- 

 tables admit of being cooked alone. For instance, I know 

 nothing nicer than good honest potatoes, simply boiled and eaten 

 hot with good butter and salt. Being myself half Irish, I look 

 upon this homely dish as "very pretty eating," as it was called 

 by an Irishman. Many vegetables are used in combination with 

 meats of sorts, with fish, and with eggs ; and therefore, in order 

 to make this paper more useful, I shall, here and there, allude to 

 certain combinations of vegetables with other materials. 



It is a curious phenomenon of the human brain that cookery 

 had been for long looked upon as a vulgar occupation. We 

 think a great deal of things that are pleasing to the sight, such 

 as pictures, flowers, pretty furniture, pretty dresses, &c. We 

 think a great deal of scents that are pleasing to the olfactory 

 nerves. We also think very highly of charming sounds, songs, 

 music of all sorts, that fascinate the organ of hearing. But, 

 curiously enough, when we come to things that please the palate, 

 our common sense seems to fail us. We seem to look upon the 

 pleasures of the palate as akin to gluttony. The reason of this 

 seems to be that, while indulging in these pleasures, we have to 

 introduce into our interior economy something material, and the 

 handling of the raw materials in the kitchen is not always very 

 fascinating. 



No doubt eating and drinking have been often abused, not 

 only in ancient, but also in modern times. Indeed, the mediaeval 

 Church set upon its lists, as great sins, what may be vulgarly 

 called " the sins of the belly," or, as the Italians called them, 

 " peccati della gola " ; that is, " sins of the gullet." In my 

 opinion, however, cookery ought to be considered as one of the 

 fine arts. It is not only an art, but also a science, much like 

 chemistry, with the great advantage that, unlike the latter art, 

 cookery does not frequently evolve such odiously bad smells. 



The kitchen should be looked upon as a laboratory, 

 where innumerable combinations of different kinds of food- 



