Cornelia Ann Irod

ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED.

Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1832 byMUNROE & FRANCIS,In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusets.

STEREOTYPED BY LYMAN THURSTON & CO.BOSTON.

THE cook exercises a greater power over the public health and welfare than the physician, and if he should be a charlatan in his art, alas! for his employers. Hitherto, or until of late years, the cook has had to educate himself, while the physician appropriates all the knowledge of antiquity, and of every succeeding age; his individual cases are all classed according to general principles, while the rules that have regulated the preparation of our food, have been discordant and unnatural. In the present age, indeed, cookery has been raised to the dignity of an art, and sages have given their treatises to the world. Vèry has a monument in the cemetery of Père La Chaise, among the tombs of warriors, poets, and philosophers, recording of his life that 'it was consecrated to the useful arts.' Virgil however, writes that the best delights of Elysium were showered upon those who received wounds for their country, who lived unspotted priests, who uttered verses worthy of Apollo, or who, like Vèry, consecrated their lives to the useful arts. On the utilitarian principle the cook should be much elevated in public estimation, and were he to form a strict alliance with the physician, the patriarchal ages would return, and men would die of nothing but sheer old age.

After insanity, the most grievous affliction of Providence, or rather of improvidence and imprudence, is Dyspepsy: a malady that under different names has decimated the inhabitants of civilized countries, and of almost all countries, in which man is a 'cooking animal.' To the dyspeptic, the sun has no cheering ray, the air no elasticity or balm; the flowers are without fragrance, music is without melody, and beauty without charms. Life is a blank; affection has lost its power to soothe, and the blessings scattered by Providence, are converted into ministers of torment. Food becomes a bane; the very staff that supports life, gives the flagellation that renders life a curse. All that can delight is lost,--but all that can depress and sting, has a tenfold activity and power.

IN domestic arrangement the table is entitled to no small share of attention, as a well conducted system of domestic management is the foundation of every comfort; and the respectability and welfare of families depend in a great measure on the prudent conduct of the female, whose province it is to manage the domestic concerns.

However the fortunes of individuals may support a large expenditure, it will be deficient in all that can benefit or grace society, and in every thing essential to moral order and rational happiness, if not conducted on a regular system, embracing all the objects of such a situation.

In domestic management, as in education, so much must depend on the particular circumstances of every case, that it is impossible to lay down a system which can be generally applicable.

The immediate plan of every family must be adapted to its own peculiar situation, and can only result from the good sense and early good habits of the parties, acting upon general rational principles.

What one family is to do, must never be measured by what another family does. Each one knows its own resources, and should consult them alone. What might be meanness in one, might be extravagance in another, and therefore there can be no standard of reference but that of individual prudence. The most fatal of all things to private families, is to indulge an ambition to make an appearance above their fortunes, professions, or business, whatever these may be.

The next point, both for comfort and respectability, is, that all the household economy should be uniform, not displaying a parade of show in one thing, and a total want of comfort in another. Besides the contemptible appearance that this must have to every person of good sense, it is productive of consequences, not only of present, but future injury to a family, that are too often irreparable.

In great cities in particular, how common is it that for the vanity of having a showy drawing-room to receive company, the family are confined to a close back room, where they have scarcely either air or light, the want of which must materially prejudice their health.

To keep rooms for show, where the fortune is equal to having a house that will accommodate the family properly, and admit of this also, belongs to the highest sphere of life; but in private families, to shut up the only room perhaps in the house which is really wholesome for the family to live in, is inflicting a kind of lingering murder upon the inmates; and yet how frequently this consideration escapes persons who mean well by their family, but who still have a grate, a carpet, and chairs, too fine for every day's use.

Another fruit of this evil is, seeing more company, and in a more expensive manner than is compatible with the general convenience of the family, introducing with it an expense in dress, and a dissipation of time, from which it suffers in various ways.

Social intercourse is not improved by parade, but quite the contrary; real friends, and the pleasantest kind of acquaintance, those who like to be sociable, are repulsed by it. It is a failure therefore every way--the loss of what is really valuable, and an abortive attempt to be fashionable.

A fundamental error in domestic life of very serious extent, involving no less the comfort than the health of the family, arises from the ignorance or mistaken notions of the mistress of the house upon the subjects of diet and cookery.

The subject of cookery is thought by too many women to be below their attention, or, when practically engaged in, it is with no other consideration about it than, in the good housewife's phrase, to make the most of every thing, whether good, bad, or indifferent; or to contrive a thousand mischievous compositions, both savory and sweet, to recommend their own ingenuity.

If cookery is worth studying, as a sensual gratification, it is surely much more so as a means of securing one of the greatest of human blessings--good health; and we cannot quit this part of the subject of domestic management without observing, that one cause of a great deal of injurious cookery originates in the same vanity of show that is productive of so many other evils. In order to set out a table with a greater number of dishes than the situation of the family requires, more cookery is often undertaken than there are servants to do it well, or conveniences in the kitchen for the purpose. Thus some viands are done before they are wanted for serving up, and stand by spoiling, to make room for others; these are again perhaps to be succeeded by something else; and too often are things served up that had better be thrown away, than to be used for food.

The leading consideration about food ought always to be its wholesomeness. Cookery may produce savory and pretty looking dishes without their possessing any of the qualities of food. It is at the same time both a serious and ludicrous reflection that it should be thought to do honor to our friends and ourselves to set out a table where indigestion and all its train of evils, such as fever, rheumatism, gout, and the whole catalogue of human diseases lie lurking in almost every dish. Yet this is both done, and taken as a compliment. We have indeed the "unbought grace of polished society, where gluttony loses half its vice by being stripped of its grossness." When a man at a public house dies of a surfeit of beef steak and porter, who does not exclaim, what a beast!

A reasonable indulgence in the abundant supplies of nature, converted by art to the purposes of wholesome food, is one of the comforts added to the maintenance of life. It is an indiscriminate gratification of our tastes, regardless of the consequences that may ensue from it, that is alone blamable. But so great is our general apathy in these respects, that even on the occurrence of diseases, from which we are all more or less sufferers, we scarcely ever reflect on our diet, as the principal, if not the sole cause of them. We assign them to weather, to infection, to hereditary descent, to spontaneous breeding, as if a disease could originate without a cause; or to any frivolous imaginary source, without suspecting, or being willing to own, mismanagement of ourselves.

We derive the renewal of our blood and juices, which are constantly exhausting, from the substances we take as food. As our food, therefore, is proper or improper, too much or too little, so will our blood and juices be good or bad, overcharged or deficient, and our state of health accordingly good or diseased.

By aliment, or food, is to be understood whatever we eat or drink, including seasonings; such as salt, sugar, spices, vinegar, &c. &c. Every thing, in short, which we receive into our stomachs. Our food, therefore, consists not only of such particles as are proper for the nourishment and support of the human body, but likewise contains certain active principles, viz. salts, oils, and spirits, which have the properties of stimulating the solids, quickening the circulation, and making the fluids thinner; thus rendering them more suited to undergo the necessary secretions of the body.

The art of preserving health, and obtaining long life, therefore consists in the use of a moderate quantity of such diet as shall neither increase the salts and oils, so as to produce disease, nor diminish them, so as to suffer the solids to become relaxed.

It is very difficult, almost impossible, to ascertain exactly what are the predominant qualities either in our bodies or in the food we eat. In practice, therefore, we can have no other rule but observing by experience what it is that hurts or does us good; and what it is our stomach can digest with facility, or the contrary. But then we must keep our judgment unbiassed, and not suffer it to become a pander to the appetite, and thus betray the stomach and health, to indulge our sensuality.

The eating too little is hurtful, as well as eating too much. Neither excess, nor hunger, nor any thing else that passes the bounds of nature, can be good to man.

By loading the stomach, fermentation is checked, and of course digestion impeded; for the natural juice of the stomach has not room to exert itself, and it therefore nauseates its contents, is troubled with eructations, the spirits are oppressed, obstructions ensue, and fever is the consequence. Besides, that when thus overfilled, the stomach presses on the diaphragm, prevents the proper play of the lungs, and occasions uneasiness in our breathing. Hence arise various ill symptoms and depraved effects throughout the body, enervating the strength, decaying the senses, hastening old age, and shortening life. Though these effects are not immediately perceived, yet they are certain attendants of intemperance; for it has been generally observed in great eaters, that, though from custom, a state of youth, and a strong constitution, they have no present inconvenience, but have digested their food, suffered surfeit, and borne their immoderate diet well; if they have not been unexpectedly cut off, they have found the symptoms of old age come on early in life, attended with pains and innumerable disorders.

If we value our health, we must ever make it a rule not to eat to satiety or fulness, but desist while the stomach feels quite easy. Thus we shall be refreshed, light, and cheerful; not dull, heavy, or indisposed. Should we ever be tempted to eat too much at one time, we should eat the less at another. Thus, if our dinner has been larger than usual, let our supper be less, or rather quite omitted; for there is no man, however careful of his health, who does not occasionally transgress in this way.

With regard to the times of eating, they must to a certain degree be conformed to family convenience, but ought to be quite independent of the caprices of fashion. The great things to be guarded against are, either eating too soon after a former meal, or fasting too long.--The stomach should always have time to empty itself before it is filled again.

Some stomachs digest their contents sooner than others, and if long empty it may destroy the appetite, and greatly disturb both the head and animal spirits; for, from the great profusion of nerves spread upon the stomach, there is an immediate sympathy between that and the head. Hence the head is sure to be affected by whatever disorders the stomach, whether from any particular aliment that disagrees with it, or being overfilled, or too long empty. Such as feel a gnawing in the stomach, as it is called, should not wait till the stated time of the next meal, but take a small quantity of light, easily digested food, that the stomach may have something to work on.

Young persons in health, who use much exercise, may eat three times a day. But such as are in years, such as are weak, as do no work, use no exercise, or lead a sedentary life, eating twice in the day is sufficient; or, as in the present habits of society, it might be difficult to arrange the taking only two meals, let them take three very moderate ones. Old and weak persons may eat often, but then it should be very little at a time.

The quality of our food is a subject of greater difficulty than the quantity; moderation is an invariably safe guide in the latter instance; but though always favorable to prevent ill effects from any error in quality, it will not always be effectual.

To a person in good health, with a strong stomach, and whose constant beverage is water, cold or tepid, according to the season, or some aqueous liquor, the niceties of choice in food or cookery are less material than to persons with naturally weak stomachs, or to those in sickness, or for children. But all persons who would to a certainty preserve their health and faculties, and live out the natural term of life, should use plain food, as all high seasonings and compound mixtures have an injurious effect, sooner or later, on the strongest constitutions. If a few instances can be quoted to the contrary, these, like other anomalies in nature, cannot constitute an exception to a well established fact.

No part of our aliment is more important than our beverage. It is essential to moisten and convey our more solid food into the stomach, and from thence to the respective parts of the body. To allay thirst, to dilute the blood, that it may circulate through the minutest vessels, to dissolve and carry off by the watery secretions the superfluous salts we take in our food; to answer these purposes no liquid is so effectual as pure water, with the exception of some few cases. No other liquid circulates so well, or mixes so immediately with our fluids. All other liquors are impregnated with particles which act strongly upon the solids or fluids, or both; but water being simple, operates only by diluting, moistening, and cooling, which are the great uses of drink pointed out to us by nature. Hence it is evident that water is in general the best and most wholesome drink; but some constitutions require something to warm and stimulate the stomach, and then fermented liquors taken in moderation are proper; such as beer, ale, cider, wine, &c. the choice and quantity of which depend on the age, constitution, and manner of living of the drinker; and to have them pure is above all things essential; as otherwise, instead of being of any benefit, they will be highly detrimental.

Drams, or distilled spirituous liquors, the use of which is unhappily very prevalent, are of the most poisonous qualities; and from their direful effects are the destruction of thousands. From the degree of heat they have undergone in distillation they acquire a corrosive and burning quality, which makes them as certain to kill as laudanum or arsenic, though not so soon. They contract the fibres and vessels of the body, especially where they are the tenderest, as in the brain, and thus destroy the intellectual faculties. They injure the coat of the stomach, and thus expose the nerves and weaken the fibres till the whole stomach becomes at last soft, flabby, and relaxed. From whence ensues loss of appetite, indigestion, and diseases that generally terminate in premature death. Spirituous liquors in any way, whether alone, mixed with water, in punch, shrub, noyau, or other liqueurs, are all slow poisons.

It would be endless to enter on an account of the different qualities of all sorts of wines, but it may be said in general, that all the light wines of a moderate strength, due age and maturity, are more wholesome for the constitution than the rich, hot, strong, heavy wines; for the light wines inflame the juices of the body less and go off the stomach with less difficulty.

The last thing to be said concerning liquors is, that wine and all other strong liquors, are as hard to digest as solid strong food. This is not only evident with respect to persons of weak stomachs and digestion, but also from strong healthy people, who only drink either water or small beer at their meals, and are able to eat and digest almost double the quantity of what they could if they drank strong liquors. It appears very plain, therefore, that we should not drink strong liquors at our meals, as by their heat and activity they hurry the food undigested into the habit of the body, and by that means lay a foundation for various distempers. An abstinence, in short, from fermented liquors would preserve our mental faculties in vigor, and our bodies from many painful disorders that afflict mankind, as there is no doubt that we may principally ascribe to them the gout, rheumatism, stone, cancer, fevers, hysterics, lunacy, apoplexy, and palsy.

Many put in milk, to make what they boil look white; but this does more harm than good: others wrap it up in a cloth; but these are needless precautions: if the scum be attentively removed, meat will have a much more delicate color and finer flavor than it has when muffled up. This may give rather more trouble, but those who wish to excel in their art must only consider how the processes of it can be most perfectly performed: a cook, who has a proper pride and pleasure in her business, will make this her maxim on all occasions.

It is desirable that meat for boiling be of an equal thickness, or before thicker parts are done enough, the thinner will be done too much.

Put your meat into cold water, in the proportion of about a quart of water to a pound of meat: it should be covered with water during the whole of the process of boiling, but not drowned in it; the less water, provided the meat be covered with it, the more savory will be the meat, and the better will be the broth.

The water should be heated gradually, according to the thickness, &c. of the article boiled. For instance, a leg of mutton of ten pounds weight should be placed over a moderate fire, which will gradually make the water hot, without causing it to boil for about forty minutes; if the water boils much sooner, the meat will be hardened, and shrink up as if it was scorched: by keeping the water a certain time heating without boiling, the fibres of the meat are dilated, and it yields a quantity of scum, which must be taken off as soon as it rises.

The editor placed a thermometer in water in that state which cooks call gentle simmering; the heat was 212°, i.e. the same degree as the strongest boiling.

Two mutton chops were covered with cold water; one boiled a gallop, while the other simmered very gently for three-quarters of an hour: the chop which was slowly simmered was decidedly superior to that which was boiled; it was much tenderer, more juicy, and much higher flavored. The liquor which boiled fast was in like proportion more savory, and when cold had much more fat on its surface. This explains why quick boiling renders meat hard, ∓c., because its juices are extracted in a greater degree.

Reckon the time from its first coming to a boil.

The old rule of 15 minutes to a pound of meat, we think rather too little: the slower it boils, the tenderer, the plumper, and whiter it will be.

For those who choose their food thoroughly cooked (which all will who have any regard for their stomachs), twenty minutes to a pound for fresh, and rather more for salted meat, will not be found too much for gentle simmering by the side of the fire, allowing more or less time, according to the thickness of the joint, and the coldness of the weather: to know the state of which, let a thermometer be placed in the pantry; and when it falls below 40°, tell your cook to give rather more time in both roasting and boiling, always remembering, the slower it boils the better.

Without some practice it is difficult to teach any art; and cooks seem to suppose they must be right, if they put meat into a pot, and set it over the fire for a certain time, making no allowance whether it simmers without a bubble or boils a gallop.

Fresh-killed meat will take much longer time boiling than that which has been kept till it is what the butchers call ripe; and longer in cold than in warm weather: if it be frozen, it must be thawed before boiling as before roasting; if it be fresh-killed, it will be tough and hard, if you stew it ever so long, and ever so gently. In cold weather, the night before the day you dress it, bring it into a place of which the temperature is not less than 45 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer.

The size of the boiling-pots should be adapted to what they are to contain: the larger the saucepan the more room it takes upon the fire, and a larger quantity of water requires a proportionate increase of fire to boil it.

In small families we recommend block-tin saucepans, &c. as lightest and safest. If proper care is taken of them, and they are well dried after they are cleaned, they are by far the cheapest; the purchase of a new tin saucepan being little more than the expense of tinning a copper one.

Let the covers of your boiling-pots fit close, not only to prevent unnecessary evaporation of the water, but to prevent the escape of the nutritive matter, which must then remain either in the meat or in the broth; and the smoke is prevented from insinuating itself under the edge of the lid, and so giving the meat a bad taste.

If you let meat or poultry remain in the water after it is done enough, it will become sodden, and lose its flavor.

Beef and mutton a little under-done (especially very large joints, which will make the better hash or broil,) is not a great fault; by some people it is preferred: but lamb, pork, and veal are uneatable if not thoroughly boiled; but do not over-do them.

A trivet or fish-drainer put on the bottom of the boiling-pot, raising the contents about an inch and a half from the bottom, will prevent that side of the meat which comes next the bottom from being done too much and the lower part of the meat will be as delicately done as the other part; and this will enable you to take out the contents of the pot, without sticking a fork, &c. into it. If you have not a trivet, use four skewers, or a soup-plate laid the wrong side upwards.

I do not mean to deny the superior excellence of roasting to baking; but some joints, when baked, so nearly approach to the same when roasted, that I have known them to be carried to the table, and eaten as such with great satisfaction.

Legs and loins of pork, legs of mutton, fillets of veal, and many other joints, will bake to great advantage, if the meat be good; I mean well-fed, rather inclined to be fat: if the meat be poor, no baker can give satisfaction.

When baking a poor joint of meat, before it has been half baked I have seen it start from the bone, and shrivel up scarcely to be believed.

Besides those joints above mentioned, I shall enumerate a few baked dishes which I can particularly recommend.

A pig, when sent to the baker prepared for baking, should have its ears and tail covered with buttered paper properly fastened on, and a bit of butter tied up in a piece of linen to baste the back with, otherwise it will be apt to blister: with a proper share of attention from the baker, I consider this way equal to a roasted one.

A goose prepared the same as for roasting, taking care to have it on a stand, and when half done to turn the other side upwards. A duck the same.

A buttock of beef the following way is particularly fine. After it has been in salt about a week, to be well washed, and put into a brown earthen pan with a pint of water; cover the pan tight with two or three thicknesses of cap or foolscap paper: never cover anything that is to be baked with brown paper, the pitch and tar that is in brown paper will give the meat a smoky, bad taste: give it four or five hours in a moderately heated oven.

A ham (if not too old) put in soak for an hour, taken out and wiped, a crust made sufficient to cover it all over, and baked in a moderately heated oven, cuts fuller of gravy, and of a finer flavor, than a boiled one. I have been in the habit of baking small cod-fish, haddock, and mackerel, with a dust of flour, and some bits of butter put on them; eels, when large and stuffed; herrings and sprats, in a brown pan, with vinegar and a little spice, and tied over with paper. A hare, prepared the same as for roasting, with a few pieces of butter, and a little drop of milk put into the dish, and basted several times, will be found nearly equal to roasting; or cut it up, season it properly, put it into a jar or pan, and cover it over and bake it in a moderate oven for about three hours. In the same manner, I have been in the habit of baking legs and shins of beef, ox cheeks, &c. prepared with a seasoning of onions, turnips, &c.: they will take about four hours: let them stand till cold, to skim off the fat; then warm it up all together, or part, as you may want it.

All these I have been in the habit of baking for the first families.

The time each of the above articles should take depends much upon the state of the oven, and I do consider the baker a sufficient judge; if they are sent to him in time, he must be very neglectful if they are not ready at the time they are ordered.

Do not put meat too near the fire at first; the larger the joint; the farther it must be kept from the fire: if once it gets scorched, the outside will become hard, and acquire a disagreeable, empyreumatic taste; and the fire being prevented from penetrating into it, the meat will appear done before it is little more than half done, besides losing the pale brown color, which it is the beauty of roasted meat to have.

Be very careful to place the dripping-pan at such a distance from the fire as just to catch the drippings: if it is too near, the ashes will fall into it, and spoil the drippings.

If it is too far from the fire to catch them, you will not only lose your drippings, but the meat will be blackened and spoiled by the fœtid smoke, which will arise when the fat falls on the live cinders.

A large dripping-pan is convenient for several purposes. It should not be less than twenty-eight inches long and twenty inches wide, and have a covered well on the side from the fire, to collect the drippings; this will preserve them in the most delicate state: in a pan of the above size you may set fried fish, and various dishes, to keep hot.

The time meat will take roasting will vary according to the time it has been kept, and the temperature of the weather; the same weight will be twenty minutes or half an hour longer in cold weather, than it will be in warm; and if fresh killed, than if it has been kept till it is tender.

Everybody knows the advantage of slow boiling. Slow roasting is equally important.

It is difficult to give any specific rule for time; but if your fire is made as before directed, your meat-screen sufficiently large to guard what you are dressing from currents of air, and the meat is not frosted, you cannot do better than follow the old general rule of allowing rather more than a quarter of an hour to the pound; a little more or less, according to the temperature of the weather, in proportion as the piece is thick or thin, the strength of the fire, the nearness of the meat to it, and the frequency with which you baste it; the more it is basted the less time it will take, as it keeps the meat soft and mellow on the outside, and the fire acts with more force upon it.

Reckon the time, not to the hour when dinner is ordered, but to the moment the roasts will be wanted. Supposing there are a dozen people to sip soup and eat fish first, you may allow them ten or fifteen minutes for the former, and about as long for the latter, more or less, according to the temptations the "BON GOUT" of these preceding courses has to attract their attention.

When the joint is half done, remove the spit and dripping-pan back, and stir up your fire thoroughly, that it may burn clear and bright for the browning; when the steam from the meat draws towards the fire, it is a sign of its being done enough; but you will be the best judge of that, from the time it has been down, the strength of the fire you have used, and the distance your spit has been from it.

Half an hour before your meat is done, make some gravy, and just before you take it up, put it nearer the fire to brown it. If you wish to froth it, baste it, and dredge it with flour carefully: you cannot do this delicately nice without a very good light. The common fault seems to be using too much flour. The meat should have a fine light varnish of froth, not the appearance of being covered with a paste. Those who are particular about the froth use butter instead of drippings.

A good cook is as anxiously attentive to the appearance and color of her roasts, as a young beauty is to her complexion at a birthday ball. If your meat does not brown so much, or so evenly as you wish, take two ounces of glaze, i.e. portable soup, put four table-spoonfuls of water, and let it warm and dissolve gradually by the side of the fire. This will be done in about a quarter of an hour; put it on the meat equally all over with a paste-brush the last thing before it goes to table.

Though roasting is one of the most common, and is generally considered one of the most easy and simple processes of cookery, it requires more unremitting attention to perform it perfectly well than it does to make most made dishes.

That made dishes are the most difficult preparations, deserves to be reckoned among the culinary vulgar errors; in plain roasting and boiling it is not easy to repair a mistake once made; and all the discretion and attention of a steady careful cook must be unremittingly upon the alert.

For general purposes, and especially for fish, clean fresh lard is not near so expensive as oil or clarified butter, and does almost as well. Butter often burns before you are aware of it; and what you fry will get a dark and dirty appearance.

Dripping, if nicely clean and fresh, is almost as good as any thing; if not clean, it may be easily clarified. Whatever fat you use, after you have done frying, let it remain in the pan for a few minutes, and then pour it through a sieve into a clean basin; it will do three or four times as well as it did at first, i.e. if it has not burned: but, the fat you have fried fish in must not be used for any other purpose.

To know when the fat is of a proper heat, according to what you are to fry, is the great secret in frying.

To fry fish, parsley, potatoes, or any thing that is watery, your fire must be very clear, and the fat quite hot; which you may be pretty sure of, when it has done hissing, and is still. We cannot insist too strongly on this point: if the fat is not very hot, you cannot fry fish either to a good color, or firm and crisp.

To be quite certain, throw a little bit of bread into the pan; if it fries crisp, the fat is ready; if it burns the bread, it is too hot.

The fire under the pan must be clear and sharp, otherwise the fat is so long before it becomes ready, and demands such attendance to prevent the accident of its catching fire, that the patience of cooks is exhausted, and they frequently, from ignorance or impatience, throw in what they are going to fry before the fat is half hot enough. Whatever is so fried will be pale and sodden, and offend the palate and stomach not less than the eye.

Have a good light to fry by, that you may see when you have got the right color: a lamp fixed on a stem, with a loaded foot, which has an arm that lengthens out, and slides up and down like a reading candlestick, is a most useful appendage to kitchen fireplaces, which are very seldom light enough for the nicer operations of cookery.

After all, if you do not thoroughly drain the fat from what you have fried, especially from those things that are full dressed in bread crumbs, or biscuit powder, &c., your cooking will do you no credit.

The dryness of fish depends much upon its having been fried in fat of a due degree of heat; it is then crisp and dry in a few minutes after it is taken out of the pan: when it is not, lay it on a soft cloth before the fire, turning it occasionally, till it is. This will sometimes take fifteen minutes: therefore, always fry fish as long as this before you want them, for fear you may find this necessary.

To fry fish, see receipt to fry soles, which is the only circumstantial account of the process that has yet been printed. If the cook will study it with a little attention, she must soon become an accomplished frier.

Frying, though one of the most common of culinary operations, is one that is least commonly performed perfectly well.

Cleanliness is extremely essential in this mode of cookery.

Keep your gridiron quite clean between the bars, and bright on the top: when it is hot, wipe it well with a linen cloth: just before you use it, rub the bars with clean mutton-suet, to prevent the meat from being marked by the gridiron.

Take care to prepare your fire in time, so that it may burn quite clear: a brisk and clear fire is indispensable, or you cannot give your meat that browning which constitutes the perfection of this mode of cookery, and gives a relish to food it cannot receive any other way.

The chops or slices should be from half to three-quarters of an inch in thickness; if thicker, they will be done too much on the outside before the inside is done enough.

Be diligently attentive to watch the moment that any thing is done: never hasten any thing that is broiling, lest you make smoke and spoil it.

Let the bars of the gridiron be all hot through, but yet not burning hot upon the surface: this is the perfect and fine condition of the gridiron.

As the bars keep away as much heat as their breadth covers, it is absolutely necessary they should be thoroughly hot before the thing to be cooked be laid on them.

The bars of gridirons should be made concave, and terminate in a trough to catch the gravy and keep the fat from dropping into the fire and making a smoke; which will spoil the broil.

Upright gridirons are the best, as they can be used at any fire without fear of smoke; and the gravy is preserved in the trough under them.

N. B. Broils must be brought to table as hot as possible; set a dish to heat when you put your chops on the gridiron, from whence to the mouth their progress must be as quick as possible.

When the fire is not clear, the business of the gridiron may be done by the Dutch oven or bonnet.

Take care to have a very clear, brisk fire; throw a little salt on it; make the gridiron hot, and set it slanting, to prevent the fat from dropping into the fire, and making a smoke. It requires more practice and care than is generally supposed to do steaks to a nicety; and for want of these little attentions, this very common dish, which every body is supposed capable of dressing, seldom comes to table in perfection.

Ask those you cook for, if they like it under, or thoroughly done; and what accompaniments they like best; it is usual to put a table-spoonful of ketchup, or a little minced eschalot, into a dish before the fire; while you are broiling, turn the steak, &c. with a pair of steak-tongs, it will be done in about ten or fifteen minutes; rub a bit of butter over it, and send it up garnished with pickles and finely-scraped horse-radish.

The cook must pay continual attention to the condition of her stew-pans, soup-kettles, &c. which should be examined every time they are used. The prudent housewife will carefully examine the condition of them herself at least once a month. Their covers also must be kept perfectly clean and well tinned, and the stew-pans not only on the inside, but about a couple of inches on the outside: many mischiefs arise from their getting out of repair; and if not kept nicely tinned, all your good work will be in vain; the broths and soups will look green and dirty, taste bitter and poisonous, and will be spoiled both for the eye and palate, and your credit will be lost.

The health, and even life of the family, depends upon this, and the cook may be sure her employers had rather pay the tinman's bill than the doctor's; therefore, attention to this cannot fail to engage the regard of the mistress, between whom and the cook it will be my utmost endeavor to promote perfect harmony.

If she has the misfortune to scorch or blister the tinning of her pan, which will happen sometimes to the most careful cook, I advise her, by all means, immediately to acquaint her employers, who will thank her for candidly mentioning an accident; and censure her deservedly if she conceal it.

Take care to be properly provided with sieves and tammy cloths, spoons and ladles. Make it a rule without an exception, never to use them till they are well cleaned and thoroughly dried, nor any stew-pans, &c. without first washing them out with boiling water, and rubbing them well with a dry cloth and a little bran, to clean them from grease, sand, &c., or any bad smell they may have got since they were last used: never neglect this.

Though we do not suppose our cook to be such a naughty slut as to wilfully neglect her broth-pots, &c., yet we may recommend her to wash them immediately, and take care they are thoroughly dried at the fire, before they are put by, and to keep them in a dry place, for damp will rust and destroy them very soon: attend to this the first moment you can spare after the dinner is sent up.

Never put by any soup, gravy, &c. in metal utensils; in which never keep any thing longer than is absolutely necessary for the purposes of cookery; the acid, vegetables, fat, &c. employed in making soups, &c. are capable of dissolving such utensils: therefore stone or earthen vessels should be used for this purpose.

Stew-pans, soup-pots, and preserving pans, with thick and round bottoms (such as saucepans are made with), will wear twice as long, and are cleaned with half the trouble, as those whose sides are soldered to the bottom, for sand and grease get into the joined part, and cookeys say that it is next to an impossibility to dislodge it, even if their nails are as long as Nebuchadnezzar's.

Take care that the lids fit as close as possible, that the broth, soup, and sauces, &c. may not waste by evaporation. They are good for nothing, unless they fit tight enough to keep the steam in and the smoke out.

Stew-pans and saucepans should be always bright on the upper rim, where the fire does not burn them; but to scour them all over is not only giving the cook needless trouble, but wearing out the vessels.

Lean, juicy beef, mutton, or veal, form the basis of broth; procure those pieces which afford the richest succulence, and as fresh killed as possible.

Stale meat will make broth grouty and bad tasted, and fat meat is wasted. This only applies to those broths which are required to be perfectly clear: fat and clarified drippings may be so combined with vegetable mucilage, as to afford, at the small cost of one penny per quart, a nourishing and palatable soup, fully adequate to satisfy appetite and support strength: this will open a new source to those benevolent housekeepers, who are disposed to relieve the poor, will show the industrious classes how much they have it in their power to assist themselves, and rescue them from being objects of charity dependent on the precarious bounty of others, by teaching them how they may obtain a cheap, abundant, salubrious, and agreeable aliment for themselves and families.

This soup has the advantage of being very easily and very soon made, with no more fuel than is necessary to warm a room. Those who have not tasted it, cannot imagine what a salubrious, savory and satisfying meal is produced by the judicious combination of cheap homely ingredients.

The general fault of our soups seems to be the employment of an excess of spice, and too small a portion of roots and herbs.

There is no French dinner without soup, which is regarded as an indispensable overture; and believe it an excellent plan to begin the banquet with a basin of good soup, which, by moderating the appetite for solid animal food, is certainly a salutiferous custom.

We again caution the cook to avoid over-seasoning, especially with predominant flavors, which, however agreeable they may be to some, are extremely disagreeable to others.

Zest, soy, cavice, coratch, anchovy, curry powder, savory ragout powder, soup herb powder, browning, ketchups, pickle liquor, beer, wine, and sweet herbs, and savory spice, are very convenient auxiliaries to finish soups, &c.

The proportion of wine should not exceed a large wine-glassful to a quart of soup. This is as much as can be admitted without the vinous flavor becoming remarkably predominant though not only much larger quantities of wine (of which claret is incomparably the best, because it contains less spirit and more flavor; and English palates are less acquainted with it), but even veritable eau de vie is ordered in many books, and used by many (especially tavern cooks). So much are their soups overloaded with relish, that if you will eat enough of them they will certainly make you drunk, if they don't make you sick: all this frequently arises from an old cook measuring the excitability of the eaters' palates by his own, which may be so blunted by incessant tasting, that to awaken it, requires wine instead of water, and cayenne and garlic for black pepper and onion.

The art of composing a rich soup is so to proportion the several ingredients one to another, that no particular taste be stronger than the rest, but to produce such a fine harmonious relish that the whole is delightful. This requires that judicious combination of the materials which constitutes the "chef d'œuvre" of culinary science.

In the first place, take care that the roots and herbs be perfectly well cleaned; proportion the water to the quantity of meat and other ingredients, generally a pound of meat to a quart of water for soups, and double that quantity for gravies. If they stew gently, little more water need be put in at first than is expected at the end; for when the pot is covered quite close, and the fire gentle, very little is wasted.

Gentle stewing is incomparably the best; the meat is more tender, and the soup better flavored.

It is of the first importance that the cover of a soup-kettle should fit very close, or the broth will evaporate before you are aware of it.

Place your soup-pot over a moderate fire, which will make the water hot without causing it to boil for at least half an hour; if the water boils immediately, it will not penetrate the meat, and cleanse it from the clotted blood, and other matters which ought to go off in scum; the meat will be hardened all over by violent heat; will shrink up as if it was scorched, and give hardly any gravy: on the contrary, by keeping the water a certain time heating without boiling, the meat swells, becomes tender, its fibres are dilated, and it yields a quantity of scum, which must be taken off as soon as it appears.

It is not till after a good half hour's hot infusion that we may mend the fire, and make the pot boil: still continue to remove the scum; and when no more appears, put in the vegetables, &c. and a little salt. These will cause more scum to rise, which must be taken off immediately; then cover the pot very closely, and place it at a proper distance from the fire, where it will boil very gently, and equally, and by no means fast.

By quick and strong boiling the volatile and finest parts of the ingredients are evaporated, and fly off with the steam, and the coarser parts are rendered soluble; so you lose the good, and get the bad.

Soups will generally take from three to six hours.

Prepare your broths and soups the evening before you want them. This will give you more time to attend to the rest of your dinner the next day; and when the soup is cold, the fat may be much more easily and completely removed from the surface of it. When you decant it, take care not to disturb the settlings at the bottom of the vessel, which are so fine that they will escape through a sieve, or even through a TAMIS, which is the best strainer, the soups appear smoother and finer, and it is much easier cleaned than any sieve. If you strain it while it is hot, pass it through a clean tamis or napkin, previously soaked in cold water; the coldness of this will coagulate the fat, and only suffer the pure broth to pass through.

The full flavor of the ingredients can only be extracted by very long and slow simmering; during which take care to prevent evaporation, by covering the pot as close as possible: the best stew-pot is a digester.

Clear soups must be perfectly transparent; thickened soups, about the consistence of rich cream; and remember that thickened soups require nearly double the quantity of seasoning.

To thicken and give body to soups and sauces, the following materials are used: they must be gradually mixed with the soup till thoroughly incorporated with it; and it should have at least half an hour's gentle simmering after: if it is at all lumpy, pass it through a tamis or a fine sieve. Bread raspings, bread, isinglass, potato mucilage, flour, or fat skimmings and flour, or flour and butter, barley, rice, or oatmeal and water rubbed well together.

To their very rich gravies, &c. the French add the white meat of partridges, pigeons, or fowls, pounded to a pulp, and rubbed through a sieve. A piece of beef, which has been boiled to make broth, pounded in the like manner with a bit of butter and flour, and gradually incorporated with the gravy or soup, will be found a satisfactory substitute for these more expensive articles.

Meat from which broth has been made and all its juice has been extracted, is then excellently well prepared for POTTING, and is quite as good, or better, than that which has been baked till it is dry; indeed, if it be pounded, and seasoned in the usual manner, it will be an elegant and savory luncheon, or supper, and costs nothing but the trouble of preparing it, which is very little, and a relish is procured for sandwiches, &c. of what heretofore has been by the poorest housekeeper considered the perquisite of the CAT.

Keep some spare broth lest your soup-liquor waste in boiling, and get too thick, and for gravy for your made dishes, various sauces, &c.; for many of which it is a much better basis than melted butter.

The soup of mock turtle, and the other thickened soups, will supply you with a thick gravy sauce for poultry, fish, ragouts, &c.; and by a little management of this sort, you may generally contrive to have plenty of good gravies and good sauces with very little trouble or expense.

If soup is too thin or too weak, take off the cover of your soup-pot, and let it boil till some of the watery part of it has evaporated, or else add some of the thickening materials we have before mentioned; and have at hand some plain browning. This simple preparation is much better than any of the compounds bearing that name; as it colors sauce or soup without much interfering with its flavor, and is a much better way of coloring them than burning the surface of the meat.

When soups and gravies are kept from day to day, in hot weather, they should be warmed up every day, and put into fresh-scalded tureens or pans, and placed in a cool cellar; in temperate weather every other day may be enough.

We hope we have now put the common cook into possession of the whole arcana of soup-making, without much trouble to herself, or expense to her employers. It would greatly diminish the expense, and improve soups, if the agents employed to give them a zest were not put in above fifteen minutes before the finish, and half the quantity of spice, &c. would do. A strong heat soon dissipates the spirit of the wine, and evaporates the aroma and flavor of the spices and herbs, which are volatile in the heat of boiling water.

Warm fluids, in the form of soup, unite with our juices much sooner and better than those that are cold and raw: on this account, RESTORATIVE SOUP is the best food for those who are enfeebled by disease or dissipation, and for old people, whose teeth and digestive organs are impaired.

After catching cold, in nervous headaches, cholics, indigestions, and different kinds of cramp and spasms in the stomach, warm broth is of excellent service.

After intemperate feasting, to give the stomach a holyday for a day or two by a diet on mutton broth, or vegetable soup, &c. is the best way to restore its tone. "The stretching any power to its utmost extent weakens it. If the stomach be every day obliged to do as much as it can, it will every day be able to do less. A wise traveller will never force his horse to perform as much as he can in one day upon a long journey."

Honey is nourishing and wholesome, particularly for persons with coughs, weak lungs, and short breath. It is balsamic, cleansing, and makes the body soluble.

Great care should be taken to get it fresh and pure; it is apt to turn sour by long keeping.

Sugar used in moderation is nourishing and good, but much of it destroys the appetite, and injures the digestion. Moist sugar is the sweetest, and most opening; refined sugar, of a binding nature. The preparations made of sugar, such as barley-sugar, sugar-candy, &c. are all indigestible and bad, as the good properties of the sugar are destroyed by the process it undergoes in the making them. They are particularly injurious to children, from cloying their delicate stomachs. Young children are in general better without sugar, as it is very apt to turn acid and disagree with weak stomachs; and the kind of food they take has natural sweetness enough in it not at all to require it.

Salt, moderately used, especially with flesh, fish, butter, and cheese, is very beneficial, as it naturally stimulates weak or disordered stomachs, and checks fermentations. But if it be immoderately used it has a contrary effect. Very little salt should be used with vegetable food of the grain or seed kind; for the less salt that is put to it the milder, cooler, pleasanter, and easier of digestion it will be. Salt excites the appetite, assists the stomach in digesting crude phlegmatic substances, is cleansing, and prevents putrefaction; but if too much used, it heats and dries the blood and natural moisture. It is best for phlegmatic, cold, and moist stomachs; and most injurious to hot, lean bodies.

Salt-petre is particularly bad for bilious persons.

Vinegar is cooling, opening, excites the appetite, assists digestion, is good for hot stomachs, resists putrefaction, and therefore very good against pestilential diseases. Too much use of it injures the nerves, emaciates some constitutions, is hurtful to the breast, and makes people look old and withered, with pale lips.

The best vinegar is that which is made of the best wines. Lemon-juice and verjuice have much the same qualities and effects as vinegar.

The commonest vinegar is least adulterated.

Mustard quickens the appetite, warms the stomach, assists in digesting hard meats, and dries up surperfluous moisture. It seldom agrees with weak stomachs.

The following Engraving represents the method of dividing an Ox for the table, in England, and in most of the southern cities of the United States. The method in Boston varies considerably, dividing into smaller pieces, and this plan we pursue in the following tables; but the manner of cooking each is nearly the same.

By which persons not having scales and weights at hand may readily measure the articles wanted to form any receipt, without the trouble of weighing. Allowance to be made for any extraordinary dryness or moisture of the article weighed or measured.