Isabella Beeton

“ Accordingly, the art of cookery commences; and although the fruits of the earth, the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field, and the fish of the sea, are still the only food of mankind, yet these are so prepared, improved and dressed by skill and ingenuity, that they are the means of immeasurably extending the boundaries of human enjoyment. Everything that is edible and passes under the hands of the cook is more or less changed, and assumes new forms. ”

“ It may thus, at first sight, appear as inconsistent and presumptuous to tell a woman how to rear her infant as to instruct her in the manner of loving it. Yet, though Nature is unquestionably the best nurse, Art makes so admirable a foster-mother, that no sensible woman, in her novitiate of parent, would refuse the admonitions of art, or the teachings of experience, to consummate her duties of nurse. It is true that, in a civilized state of society, few young wives reach the epoch that makes them mothers without some insight, traditional or practical, into the management of infants ”

“ Hostesses in the season vie with each other as to whose table shall be the most elegant, and often spend almost as much upon the flowers as upon the dinner itself, employing for the floral arrangement people who make a profession of this pleasant occupation. Home decoration is practised by those who have the time, and we can imagine no household duty more attractive to the ladies of the house than that of making their tables beautiful with the exquisite floral produce of the different seasons, exercising their taste in devising new ways for employing the materials at their command. ”

“ The Cow goes with Young for Nine Months, and the affection and solicitude she evinces for her offspring is more human in its tenderness and intensity than is displayed by any other animal; and her distress when she hears it lowing, and is not allowed to reach it with her distended udders, is often painful to witness; and when the calf has died, or been accidentally killed, her grief frequently makes her refuse to give down her milk. In a state of nature the cow, like the deer, hides her young in the tall ferns and brakes, and the most secret places ”

“ Some even argue that the roads once diverging never become parallel. They declare that the art of cookery, as now understood, only results in the persistent overtaxing, instead of lightening the labours of, the digestive organs. But let us realize what it would mean to go back to pre-cooking days, when our ancestors not only devoured their relatives, but devoured them raw; or to place ourselves in some savage tribe where cookery is in its infancy; or even return to the coarse abundance of our nearer forefathers; and all will agree that the properly trained cook is more friend than foe. ”

“ Coffee-pot.—When well made, coffee, perhaps, is the most delicious and refreshing of all the infusions that are made for household use, but the goodness of coffee very often depends on the construction of the vessel in which it is made, and it is most desirable to use one in which the aromatic oil of the berry developed in the process of roasting is not driven off by boiling, on the one hand, which invariably spoils coffee, and not made sufficiently perceptible by the endeavour to make it at too low a temperature, which is too often the case. ”

“ It would be as reasonable to expect a locomotive to run without plenty of fuel as expect the human body to perform its daily labour without a sufficient supply of suitable food, properly masticated, swallowed, digested, assimilated and carried by the blood to nourish the various organs and tissues of the system, as they hourly wear out and are hourly replaced. ”

“ At any rate, London has a much larger supply of animal food in the shape of fish.
Fish in England and France.—Here, again, art is the handmaiden of nature. The sea supplies us so plentifully that we neglect or disdain fresh-water fish, upon which our neighbours expend much skill and pains in cookery. Very few English people have eaten a carp, though our lakes and ponds contain many; yet in every French cookery-book are to be found recipes showing that carp is intended to be served at dinners of some pretension. ”

“ A well-ventilated larder, dry and shady, is better for meat and poultry, which require to be kept for some time; and the utmost skill in the culinary art will not compensate for the want of proper attention to this particular. Though it is advisable that animal food should be hung up in the open air till its fibres have lost some degree of their toughness, yet, if it is kept till it loses its natural sweetness, its flavour has become deteriorated, and, as a wholesome comestible, it has lost many qualities conducive to health. ”

“ Such culinary artists as Ude, Carême and Francatelli owe their fame as Chefs-de-Cuisine to their ingenuity in originating new methods and new dishes, their skill in manipulation, and their care in combining seasonings and flavourings in such perfect proportions that no particular ingredient was allowed to predominate. Moreover, they not only raised cookery to a fine art, but their influence in the direction of refinement and elegance eliminated much that was gross in the English mode of living. ”

“ A mother's responsibilities are the greatest that a woman can have, for with her rests not only the care for the daily needs of food, clothing and the like of her children, but, what is even more important, their moral training. No matter what good nurses and attendants she may be able to engage for her little ones, what pleasures, changes of air, model nurseries, toys and books she may afford for their benefit, she should still devote some part of her time to them at any rate ”

“ She has often to help in bed making, and is generally required to dust the drawing-room, often to arrange the flowers for that and the dining-room, to put up fresh curtains, look after the drawing-room fire, and answer the sitting-room bell. She washes up the breakfast, tea and coffee things, and the glass and plate from dinner, and the plate is under her charge to be kept clean and in order. She does, in fact, all the lighter and less menial work of a housemaid, combining with these many little tasks that a mistress who kept only two servants would in all probability do for herself. ”

“ Vegetarian Soups.—A soup made of milk and cabbage, lettuce or mixed vegetables, may not please the English palate so well as the more expensive consommé, but it contains as much nourishment, and if in itself it had no food value whatever it would still be a useful addition to a meal of cold meat. A few words will explain this. Food serves the twofold purpose of maintaining the heat of the body and of supplying force or strength. A want of food produces not only a sense of hunger, but also a sensation of cold. ”

“ The Vegetable Kingdom covers and beautifies the earth with an endless variety of form and colour. It consists, with some exceptions, of organic bodies which grow by the assimilation of inorganic substances, as water, carbonic acid, and ammonia, forming out of these organic complex substances, as sugar, starch, cellulose, etc. In the process of digestion plants break up carbonic acid into its two elements of oxygen and carbon, setting free the former which is required for the sustenance of animal life, and retaining the carbon necessary for vegetable life. ”

“ The wasted fuel that escapes as smoke would cook not one but many dinners.
It is a truism to say that France, pressed by circumstances, has accomplished much in the realm of cookery. France has achieved the highest results in luxurious cookery; and to the thrift of her peasantry we must look for the beginnings of the French economy in cookery that has become almost proverbial. Luxury with economy is the highest praise in cookery. ”

“ To carve well is a graceful combination of science with art, and your true carver would carve symmetrically as well as economically even were he put in the position of dividing a sucking-pig between two. Considering how important and useful an accomplishment it is, one is astounded that more people do not make an effort to carve at least passably. The explanation, perhaps, lies in the fact that carving holds a place among those arts which every man is convinced he can practise better and more scientifically than any one else in the world! ”

“ There is no necessity for a mistress to be continually fussing round and superintending her servants' work, but she must make sure that they do it thoroughly and well. Also she must take time and pains to show her domestics how she likes the work done.
A strict mistress is not necessarily a harsh one, and for the sake of others as well as herself she should insist upon the daily duties of each servant being faithfully and punctually performed. Every mistress should know for herself how long it takes for each household task, and it is then easy to see whether or no time has been wasted. ”

“ The Germans, like the French, would not consider a dinner complete without soup: no matter how humble the meal may be, soup nearly always forms a part of it. They have, besides the ordinary meat and vegetable soup, a sweet milk soup thickened with flour and flavoured with apples, almond soup, chocolate soup, wine soup flavoured with vine leaves, potato soup flavoured with prunes or apples, and a variety of fruit soups altogether unknown to us. ”

“ Increased habits of travel have taught us the favourite dishes of other countries, while improved means of transport have brought to our doors fresh food supplies from all quarters of the earth. Cookery schools and classes have also educated many mistresses to the possibilities of the art, and encouraged them to insist on more variety and delicacy in their daily fare than the plain cook of old was wont to furnish. In short, every tendency of modern life, with greater wealth possibly—greater luxury certainly—is towards a tremendous enlargement of everyday cookery. ”

“ How common it is, when the mistress takes upon herself the duties of nurse, to find the patient neglected, not for want of attention, but for lack of knowledge, the household management disorganized, and the mistress herself worn out and ill from anxiety, watching and over-work.
Professional nurses need not only the qualifications already named. In addition to their training they should be physically strong, have good health, nerves well under control, and be sure that nursing is a congenial occupation. ”

“ The Art of Cookery.—Within the last few years cookery has made great strides in a totally new direction. The cook has turned philosopher, and loves—if not the process of reasoning—at least to be told other people's "reasons why" for the operations of the kitchen. Chemistry is a recent science, and is now in an active state of growth. Every day something is being added to our store of physiological knowledge. The science of food cannot advance a step but by the help of one of these. ”

“ As with breakfast dishes, those for supper are more a question of trouble and time than cost; but food that we can enjoy instead of food for which we have no relish has such a material difference of effect upon our system. We may conclude our observations on the last meal of the day by a word of advice to the housewife, to have it, as far as lies in her power, suited to the taste of all. ”

“ Any one reading a French cookery-book will be struck by the sparing way in which the use of an oven is prescribed. In an English book it is assumed that nothing is so easy as to shut anything in the oven and take it out when it is done—and probably the assumption is correct. If we had to do all our cooking with wood we also should become economical ”

“ In the first stage of sickness, while doubt and a little perplexity hang over the household as to the nature of the sickness, there are some things about which no doubts exist: the patient's room must be kept in a perfectly pure state, and arrangements made for proper attendance; for the first canon of nursing, according to Florence Nightingale, its apostle, is to "keep the air the patient breathes as pure as the external air, without chilling him." ”

“ They may be made of any material and in any colour, but for one which has to do duty often, red is perhaps the most useful colour, while plush is the most effective material. We have seen an old gold brocaded silk one look extremely well, with its fringe of myrtle and brown ivy leaves, and its tall, slender vases of yellowy-tinted glass filled with crimson flowers and foliage, also a pale pink one, upon which the flowers are of two tones of the same colour, with a good deal of white and green intermixed, the shades of the lamps being rose colour. ”

“ The oyster, which possesses a complete digestive system, consisting of a mouth, stomach, intestine and liver, obtains its food from the minute organisms or particles of matter which flow into its mouth by the currents of water which pass through its gills. From the time of the Romans, who highly appreciated the oysters of Britain, this shell-fish has been a favourite delicacy, not only for its rich flavour, which depends upon its feeding ground, but also for the nutritive qualities it possess, making it especially useful for invalids. ”

“ Where a servant is dismissed without due cause or proper notice, he may either treat the contract of service as at an end and sue independently of it for the value of the services he has actually rendered, or he may, as is usually the case, treat the contract as still existing and claim damages for its non-fulfilment. It must be remembered that although a servant may have been wrongfully dismissed, it is not merely his moral but his legal duty to seek other employment at once. ”

“ To leave the patient's untasted food by his side from meal to meal, in hopes that he will eat it in the interval, is simply to prevent him from taking food at all. I have known patients literally incapacitated from taking one article of food after another by this piece of ignorance. Let the food come at the right time and be taken away, eaten or uneaten, at the right time; but never let the patient have 'something always standing' by him, if you don't wish to disgust him with everything. ”

“ They have everything beautifully appointed in the children's quarters, and first-rate nurses and governesses, and they cannot take time from gaiety and pleasure to devote to what they think can be obtained from hired service. This is a mistake, for no nurse, however excellent, can supply a mother's place.
The children's hour should be an institution in every household. To the young folks it is (or should be) the happiest time in the day, while to the attendants it is a rest and a great relief. Let the children bring their little troubles and sorrows to mother, to be set right and comforted ”