A Word to the Cook by H. C. Miller.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 7, 1866

A Word to the Cook.

By H. C. Miller.

In a back number of the Review, are recorded these words: “Don’t salt and pepper your minister.” This is good as far as it goes; but why are the ministers to escape these things, and the laymen be compelled to suffer? Now I move to amend the above motion by striking out the words “your minister,” and inserting the word “anybody;” thus, “Don’t salt or pepper any body.” How often have I sat down to a meal with a sharpened appetite, hoping to appease it by partaking of some wholesome bread and potatoes; and at the table of a Seventh-day Adventist sister, at this time, why should we be disappointed?

But nearly always it is a fact that the potatoes are mashed and served up with several small lakes of melted butter, dotting the surface of the otherwise healthful mass, and sprinkled with pepper sufficient to make a strong stomach groan for two days, while underneath is a salt mine of no small dimensions. It is hard to wage war against the morbid appetite for such things, until the victory is ours, and the natural taste is satisfied with the delicious flavor of simply boiled and mashed potatoes with perhaps milk or cream added, without having to continually renew the struggle.

It is not my purpose to object to any one's eating salt and pepper, if they choose, though I wish that all might abstain from their use; but my object is simply to ask if these things could not be put on in separate dishes, so that those who desire to eat them can do so, without compelling those of more temperate appetites and tastes to partake of them also. Will the sisters who prepare the food for us, think of these things. A word to the wise is sufficient.

H. C. MILLER.

Chicago, Ill.