Catherine Owen

“ It makes no attempt to replace a good one; it is rather an effort to fill up the gap between you and your household oracle, whether she be one of those exasperating old friends who maddened our mother with their vagueness, or the newer and better lights of our own generation, the latest and best of all being a lady as well known for her novels as for her works on domestic economy—one more proof, if proof were needed, of the truth I endeavor to set forth—if somewhat tediously forgive me—in this little book: that cooking and cultivation are by no means antagonistic. ”

“ There seems to me, more mere animalism in wading through a long bill of fare, eating three or four indifferently cooked vegetables, fish, meat, poultry, each second-rate in quality, or made so by bad cooking, and declaring that you have dined well, and are easy to please, than there is in taking pains to have a perfectly broiled chop, a fine potato, and a salad, on which any true epicure could dine well, while on the former fare he would leave the table hungry. ”

“ But it is in graceful, refined France that cookery is and has been, a pet art. Any bill of fare or French cookery book will betray to a thoughtful reader the attention given to the subject by the wittiest, gayest, and most beautiful women, and the greatest men. The high-sounding names attached to French standard dishes are no mere caprice or homage of a French cook to the great in the land, but actually point out their inventor. Thus Bechamel was invented by the Marquis de Bechamel, as a sauce for codfish ”

“ In spite of Brillat-Savarin's maxim that one may become a cook, but must be born a rotisseur, I am inclined to think one may also, by remembering one or two things, become a very good "roaster" (to translate the untranslatable) , especially in our day, when the oven has taken the place of the spit, although a great deal of meat is spoiled in roasting; a loin of lamb or piece of beef, that comes to the table so pale that you can't tell whether it has been boiled or merely wilted in the oven, is an aggravation so familiar, that a rich brown, well-roasted joint is generally a surprise. ”

“ There are so many ways of warming meats to advantage—and in every one way there is the suggestion for another—that I suffer from an embarras de richesse, and have had difficulty in selecting. Dozens come to my mind, blanquettes, patties, curries, as I write; but as this is not, I have said, to be a recipe book, I forbear. Of one thing I am quite sure: when women once know how to make nice dishes of cold meat they will live well where they now live badly, and for less money; and "hash" will be relegated to its proper place as an occasional and acceptable dish. ”

“ Luncheon is usually, in this country, either a forlorn meal of cold meat or hash, or else a sort of early dinner, both of which are a mistake. If it is veritably luncheon, and not early dinner, it should be as unlike that later meal as possible for variety's sake, and, in any but very small families, there are so many dishes more suitable for luncheon than any other meal, that it is easy to have great variety with very little trouble. ”

“ I have heard a lady say with a tone of virtuous rebuke, when the conversation turned from fashions to cooking, "I give very little time to cooking, we eat to live only"—which is exactly what an animal does. Eating to live is mere feeding. ”

“ How common it is to hear and see untraveled people declare that they dislike garlic, and could not touch anything with it in. Yet those very people will take Worcestershire sauce, in which garlic is actually predominant, with everything they eat; and think none but English pickles eatable, which owe much of their excellence to the introduction of a soupçon of garlic. Therefore I beg those who actually only know garlic from hearsay abuse of it, or from its presence on the breath of some inveterate garlic eater, to give it a fair trial when it appears in a recipe. ”

“ It is a good plan to keep a supply of panure or dried bread-crumbs always ready. Cut any slices of baker's bread, dry them in a cool oven so that they remain quite colorless, or they will not do for the purpose. When as dry as crackers, crush under a rolling-pin, and sift; keep in a jar for use.
In no branch of cooking is excellence more appreciated than in that of frying. A dish of filets de sole or cutlets, crisp and golden brown, is an ornament to any table, and is seldom disdained by any one. ”

“ Only that one little hour a day that Talleyrand, the busy man full of intrigue and statecraft, found time to spend with his cook, would insure your table being well served. For, after devoting say a few winter months to perfecting yourself in a few things, you will be able to teach your cook, who is often ambitious to excel if put in the right way. A word here about cooks.
The knowledge that if they fail to do a thing well you will do it yourself, will often put them on their mettle to do their best; while the feeling that you don't know, will make them careless. ”

“ But what I do protest against, is the fact, that the same refined girls and matrons, who so love to adorn their houses that they will spend hours improving a pickle jar, mediævalizing their furniture, or decorating the dinner service, will shirk everything that pertains to the preparation of food as dirty, disagreeable drudgery, and sit down to a commonplace, ill-prepared meal, served on those artistic plates, as complacently as if dainty food were not a refinement ”

“ For small households large joints are to be avoided, but even a small roast is a large joint when there are but two or three to eat it. For this reason it is a good plan to buy such joints as divide well. A sirloin of beef is better made into two fine dishes than into one roast, and then warmed over twice. Every one knows that "Filet de bœuf Chateaubriand" is one of the classical dishes of the French table, that to a Frenchman luxury can go no further; but every one does not know how entirely within his power it is to have that dish as often as he has roast beef ”

“ In making brown sauce for any purpose, bethink yourself of anything there may be in your store-room with which to vary its flavor, taking care that it shall agree with the meat for which it is intended. The ordinary cook flies at once to Worcestershire or Harvey sauce, which are excellent at times, but "toujours perdrix" is not always welcome. A pinch of mushroom powder, or a few chopped oysters, are excellent with beef or veal; so will be a spoonful of Montpellier butter stirred in, or curry, not enough to yellow the sauce, but enough to give a dash of piquancy. ”

“ Delicious coffee is only a matter of care, not expense—and indeed in America the cause of poor food, even in a boarding-house, is seldom in the quality of the articles so much as in the preparation and selection of them—yet an epicure can breakfast well with fine bread and butter and good coffee. ”

“ The foregoing is the orthodox recipe for glaze, and if you have to buy meat for the purpose the very best way in which you can make it; but if it happen that you have some strong meat soup or jelly, for which you have no use while fresh, then boil it down till it is thick and brown (not burnt) ; it will be excellent glaze; not so fine in flavor, perhaps, but it preserves to good use what would otherwise be lost. Very many people do not know the value of pork for making jelly. If you live in the country and kill a pig, use his hocks for making glaze instead of beef. ”

“ The batter, or egg and bread-crumbs form a sort of crust which keeps it tender and juicy. Any attempt to fry cold meat without either results in a hard, stringy, uneatable dish.
White Meat of any kind is excellent warmed over in a little milk, in which you have cut a large onion, and, if you like it, a slice of salt pork or ham, and a little sliced cucumber, if it is summer; thicken with the yolks of one or two eggs, added after the whole has simmered twenty minutes; take care the egg thickens in the gravy, but does not boil, or it will curdle. ”

“ Boiling is one of the things about which cooks are most careless; theoretically they almost always know meat should be slowly boiled, but their idea of "slow " is ruled by the fire; they never attempt to rule that. There is a good rule given by Gouffé as to what slow boiling actually is: the surface of the pot should only show signs of ebullition at one side, just an occasional bubble. ”

“ Ladies of the highest rank never go to a boarding or any other school, and these are the women who, with some few exceptions, know best how things should be done. They are at home listening to criticisms from papa, who is an epicure perhaps, on the shortcomings of his own table, or his neighbors'; from mamma, as to what the soup lacks, why cook is not a "cordon bleu," etc., while our girls are at school, far away from domestic comments, deep in the agonies of algebra perhaps; and directly they leave school, in many cases they marry. ”

“ The simplest of all ways of warming a joint that is not far cut, is to wrap it in thickly buttered paper, and put it in the oven again, contriving, if possible, to cover it closely, let it remain long enough to get hot through, not to cook. By keeping it closely covered it will get hot through in less time, and the steam will prevent it getting hard and dry; make some gravy hot and serve with the meat. If your gravy is good and plentiful, your meat will be as nice as the first day; without gravy it would be an unsatisfactory dish. ”

“ There, girls who are intended for servants have ever held before their eyes what they may or may not do in the future calling, and how it is to be done. But take one of these orderly, efficient girls, put her in an American family as general servant or as cook, where two are kept, washing and ironing to do, and a variety of other work, and see how your English servant would stare at your requirements. She has been accustomed to her own line of work at home; if housemaid, she has been dressed for the day at noon; if cook, she has never done even her own washing. ”

“ Yet there are families where dripping is never used—is looked upon as unfit to use—while the truth is that many persons quite unable to eat articles fried in lard would find no inconvenience from those fried in beef fat. It is as wholesome as butter, and far better for the purpose. Butter, indeed, is only good for frying such things as omelets or scrambled eggs; things that are cooked in a very short time, and require no great degree of heat. ”

“ Made very hot, and spread on toast, with pepper and salt, it will be a relish for some one's tea or breakfast.
In this country there is a prejudice against sheep's liver; while in England, where beef liver is looked upon as too coarse to eat (and falls to the lot of the "cats-meat man," or cat butcher) , sheep's is esteemed next to calf's, and it is, in fact, more delicate than beef liver. The nicest way to cook it is in very thin slices (not the inch-thick pieces one often sees) , each slice dipped in flour and fried in pork or bacon fat, and pork or bacon served with it. ”

“ A nice little breakfast dish is made thus: Cut two long slices of cold meat and three of bread, buttered thickly, about the same shape and size; season the meat with pepper, salt, and a little finely chopped parsley; or, if it is veal, a little chopped ham; then lay one slice of bread between two of meat, and have the other two slices outside; fasten together with short wooden skewers. If you have a quick oven, put it in; and take care to baste with butter thoroughly, that the bread may be all over crisp and brown. If you can't depend on your oven, fry it in very hot fat as you would crullers ”

“ Cold stewed onions, boiled carrots or turnips, all help to make the dish savory. Chop an onion very fine, unless you have cold ones, a little parsley and thyme, if liked, and sometimes, for variety's sake, if you have it, a pinch of curry powder, not enough to make it hot or yellow, yet to impart piquancy. If you have a tiny bit of fried bacon or cold ham or cold pork, chop it with the other ingredients, mix all well, moisten with the cold soup, and, when nicely seasoned, put the hash into an iron frying-pan, in which you have a little fat made hot ”

“ But, notwithstanding all that has been done by South Kensington lectures in London and Miss Corson's Cooking School in New York to popularize the culinary art, one may go into a dozen houses, and find the ladies of the family with sticky fingers, scissors, and gum pot, busily porcelainizing clay jars, and not find one where they are as zealously trying to work out the problems of the "Official Handbook of Cookery." ”

“ It is surprising what may be done with odds and ends in a small family; a tiny plate of pieces, far too small to make an appearance on the table, and which, if special directions are not given, will seem to Bridget not worth saving, will, with each piece dipped into the batter à la Carême, and fried in hot fat, make a tempting dish for breakfast, or an entrée for dinner or luncheon. Two tablespoonfuls only of chopped meat of any kind will make croquettes for two or three people ”

“ Put in the cold beef, cut in thin slices as lean as possible, let it remain five minutes at the back of the stove; then serve on a very hot dish garnished with fried potatoes, or sippets of toast. To vary the flavor, sometimes put a spoonful of tarragon or plain vinegar, or a teaspoonful of mushroom powder, or a pinch of curry, unless objected to, or a few sweet herbs. In fact, as you may see, variety is as easy to produce as it is rare to meet with in average cooking, and depends more on intelligence and thoughtfulness than on anything else. ”