1874 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
65 
flE K©U§EM©]Ll|l 
( Foi • other Household Items, see “ Basket ” pages.) 
Supports for Shovel and Tongs. 
The fire-sets as they are sold at the furnishing 
stores include shovel, tongs, poker, and a stand to 
hold them. Figure 
1 shows one of the 
common forms of 
these stands, 
which is of cast- 
iron bronzed; oth¬ 
ers are made more 
costly in style and 
material, but es¬ 
sentially similar in 
form. The base is 
made heavy 
enough to prevent 
the affair from 
overturning read¬ 
ily, and is usually 
dished on the up¬ 
per side to hold 
the ashes that may 
drop from the 
irons as they are 
set up in place. 
Such an affair is 
not only a help to 
neatness, but is 
convenient in 
keeping the uten- 
eils always in one ^ won support. 
place. For an open wood-fire a similar convenience 
can be made in rustic work, as shown in figure 2, 
by any one who is ingenious in making such things. 
In a support of this kind the base should be made 
as a shallow box to contaiu stones or pieces of old 
iron in order to give sufficient weight and stability. 
The base may be stained with umber and varnished, 
or covered with oil-cloth with a piece of zinc 
upon the upper side for the irons to rest upon. 
Home Topics. 
Br FAITH ROCHESTER. 
Another Recipe-Book .— 1 This time it is th 
work of that great luminary in the realm of gai 
tronomy, Professor Pierre Blot himself! Tt 
book is entitled “What to Eat and How to Coo 
it.” I was delighted to get hold of this book £ 
last, and expected to learn much from it. I ai 
glad to have looked it through, and to have gaine 
a clearer idea of what it does not teach as well as 
of what it does. 
I read the preface first, as is my custom, and was 
pleased to hear Professor Blot say that “ no matter 
how inexperienced some of our housekeeping read¬ 
ers may be, by carefully following our directions 
they will be able to live as well and as economically 
as possible, and also serve a dinner in as orderly 
a manner as any steward could do.” Is not that 
promising a great deal ? 
I was amused also to have him add : “ It will not 
only be easy to order a suitable dinner at all times, 
but also a breakfast, lunch, or supper; any house¬ 
keeper may superintend her culinary department 
and direct her cook, making proper observations 
whenever necessary without the least trouble.” 
“ Without the least trouble!” “Any housekeeper! ” 
Only think what a godsend such a book must be. 
But Professor Blot never even thought of the vari¬ 
ous complications of American housekeeping, of 
the inadequate contrivances and appliances of most 
of our kitchens, of the poor and unreliable quality 
of our hired kitchen service; and how could he 
have the most faint idea of the nerve strain which 
a modern mother of young children sutlers who 
earnestly tries to steer between the Scylla and 
Charybdis of a poorly regulated cuisine and neglect 
in the department of child culture ? 
That well-meaning French missionary to Ameri¬ 
can heathen only directs the preparation of a meal. 
His assistant, a skilled French cook, carries out 
his directions, with the aid of a scullion to do all 
the rougher work of preparation and cleaning up. 
So, my sister American housekeepers, we must let 
the worthy Professor go on groaning over our bar¬ 
baric food and habits of cooking until we too can 
have our French cooks and scullions—to say noth¬ 
ing of the indispensable parsley and bay-leaf that 
go into nearly every dish concocted by him. Gail 
Hamilton says (and she was one of his pupils a few 
years ago when he lectured in Eastern cities) that 
“ Professor Blot puts broth into everything.” It 
would be easier for some of us to find or make the 
broth than the parsley, it seems. I have inquired 
diligently in a Western city of over 30,000 inhabit¬ 
ants for parsley in some form, but without success 
so fajjj I do not wish to say that it can not be 
found here, and that such a large body of American 
citizens are deprived of its saving virtue, for it may 
only be the case that I have not yet found the cor¬ 
ner where it is ‘kept. I particularly wished to learn 
all about seasonings from Professor Blot, but I 
have not been enlightened to the extent I desired. 
He says: “Seasoning is the most difficult part in 
the art of cooking : to be able to judge what kind 
of spices can be used to season such and such a 
dish ; to what extent all the spices used agree to¬ 
gether, and what taste and flavors they will give the 
object with which they are cooked; for if not 
properly used they may just as likely destroy the 
taste and flavor of the object as improve it. Some 
dishes require high and much seasonings, others 
just the contrary. With a good fire and a good 
spit it is not necessary to be a cook to roast a piece 
well, but the cook is indispensable to mix the gravy 
or sauce with the proper seasonings.” Then why 
could not Professor Blot have told us distinctly 
just what seasonings do take kindly to each other 
in all cases ? 
Masculine critics have a way of supposing that 
the inferior cooking done in our private kitchens 
is owing chiefly to our lack of exactness in follow¬ 
ing our recipes. They can not realize how difficult 
it is for many of us to have constantly on hand 
such a variety of materials as Professor Blot directs 
for nearly all his dishes. It does not occur to them 
that scarcely one housekeeper in a hundred has 
suitable scales and measures for accurate measure¬ 
ment, and nine mothers out of ten (at present the 
housekeepers are usually mothers) can not think 
of weighing out their ounces and half pounds of 
butter and sugar with babies pulling at their gowns, 
while it is so much easier to toss into the mess 
that is to be mixed or cooked “ a piece of butter as 
big as a lump of chalk ” or “ as much as you 
would £et on the table at one time.” The cooks 
must be free from child care and the mothers from 
housekeeping before ever cookery or child nurture 
can be properly carried on. 
Professor Blot never uses savory for seasoning. 
He utters his protest against it, and says that other 
excellent cooks agree with him. I saw no mention 
of marjoram in his book, which Hepzibah Brown 
had not read before Mr. Hale wrote the story of 
her Christmas turkeys, I presume. She insisted 
that all of her turkeys should be stuffed with 
pounded cracker and marjoram. You will find over 
and over in Professor Blot’s recipes this combina¬ 
tion : “a sprig of parsley, one of thyme, a bay- 
leaf,” probably “one or two white onions with a 
clove stuck in each,” and very likely “a clove of 
garlic” and two or four leeks in addition. I do 
not doubt that it is of the greatest importance to 
use seasonings in proper combinations when they 
are used at all, but it is quite possible to cook well 
and omit these spices altogether if the materials 
are good and wholesome in themselves. 
Since reading Professor Blot’s book I perceive 
that I am much more interested in cookery as a 
science than as an art; not because I despise the 
art, but because I distrust all art- that has not a 
firm basis of true science. I can not believe that 
our physical culture (and all our higher culture de¬ 
pends upon physical culture as a basis) demands 
that more attention be given to the pleasing of the 
palate by the mingling of spices and flavors than to 
the selection of wholesome materials, such use of 
heat and water, etc., in the cooking as makes the 
object cooked yield its own best flavors and its 
greatest nutriment to our requirements, and the 
judicious selection of such variety and combinations 
of food at each meal as tends most to keep our 
bodies in health and our souls untroubled by our 
bodies’ complaints. It is highly important that 
food should be made palatable as well as nourish¬ 
ing. The stomach refuses to do its best work in 
helping to make good blood of food, if that food 
comes into the stomach unrecommended by the 
nerves of taste. But there are flavors most deli¬ 
cate and delicious stored away in the fruits and 
vegetables and meats and grains themselves, “ each 
after its kind,” and a sort of culinary injustice is 
done, it seems to me, when the cooking is in care¬ 
lessness of those flavors and the main dependence 
placed upon combinations of spices. However, I 
don’t know much about it, I am free to confess ; 
but at present my hope for a true art of cookery 
turns more toward earnest investigating physiolog¬ 
ists and experimenters in vital chemistry than to 
the conventional decrees of French “artists” in 
gastronomy. 
A Good Book for Parents. —I have been 
earnestly requested by a friend to send her imme¬ 
diate notice of any book I find or hear of which 
will help her to understand her children’s needs 
and her own motherly duties toward them. So, 
while I was lately reading Herbert Spencer’s work 
on “Education,” I kept longing for a chance to 
talk over its suggestions with my friend. I com¬ 
mend this excellent book to every thoughtful 
parent. It comprises four lengthy essays, pre¬ 
viously published in English magazines, upon the 
following topics: What knowledge is of most 
worth ; Intellectual Education ; Moral Education ; 
Physical Education. I was surprised and delighted 
to find the whole so plain and so practical, and so 
particularly adapted to parents. I do not like to 
own books and have the care of them (except a 
few for very frequent reference) unless I can have 
the privilege of lending them to those who appre¬ 
ciate them ; but this is one of the books that I 
must surely buy and write my name in and keep 
circulating as fast as possible. I took it from a 
public library, where other good things are in 6tore 
for me. Bless the public libraries ! 
The Little Paint Boxes. —Our little boy had a 
fifteen-cent paint-box when he was about three 
years old, and took some pleasure in its use, but 
the colors were soon scattered and lost. When a 
new book — “ Reading without Tears ” — was 
brought home for his use, some time iu September, 
I promised him some new paints as soon as he had 
read through the first part of the book. His 
