Health and Temperance by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 28, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 21.

Health and Temperance.

By Editor

Handmaids of Dyspepsia and Death.

AS PLENTEOUS

"As the sands of the sea, where the tides ebb and flow; As the leaves of the forest, the flakes of the snow; As the stars of the sky, swiftly speeding through space, Their trackless way lighting with glory and grace, In millions as countless as the footprints of men."

are the household recipes of the present day. Almost every housewife has her cook book or books, or, if not this, her scrap book or recipes of her own invention, or copied from her neighbors' books of similar character, or, yet again, from some fugitive cook book or stray newspaper.

In short, it is but truth to say that our cooking is quite generally done "by the book." But, such books as some of them are! The crudeness with which they are prepared, the lack of common sense, even, that many of them display is frightful to contemplate; and when we come to consider the fact that these are "law and gospel" in multitudes of kitchens, we cease to marvel at the rapid pace with which dyspepsia walks abroad, to wonder that "good digestion waits on appetite" no longer, or to accept as true the statement that indigestion numbers more victims than pistols, powder, and bullets.

There are, it is true, a few good cook books, but they are sandwiched in so closely with such as are good for nothing and only "made to sell," that it is indeed hard to sift the wheat from the chaff, to separate the gold from the dross, and to draw the line well between the Simon pure and the poor—and very poor, at that.

And again, Miss Parloa, whose books are of the Simon pure variety—by the way, every recipe which she prints having been thoroughly tested by her own hands—says, with much truth and soberness, that the best of recipes can never bear good fruit when brains are left entirely out of the mixtures. These, of an average quality, at least, are necessary to the bringing forth of good results in about equal proportions of judgment, consideration, and care. One housewife or cook will make most excellent bread from the same materials or "ingredients" that another will produce the same article from that is "not fit to eat." And so on, down through the whole detailed list of items in the cooking calendar.

A recipe is often considered as worthless when it is really excellent, the only fault being in reality, in the manipulation. One weighs and measures carefully and another carelessly, the result being that one drowns out all the virtues of the "thing full" of this with the overpowering measurement or the short weight of her "thing full" of that. The wide range in size of spoons and tea-cups is also a great drawback to the correct rendering of recipes in practical operation. A tea-cup may almost be said to range in capacity from that of a thimble to that of a bowl, and a "flowing bowl"—overflowing, at that. Spoons also vary, but not so radically as do tea-cups. This article of household use, however, has so wide a variation in size, that in compounding recipes by the "spoonful" great care and much judgment are necessary. Eggs, too, vary in size and quality, there being as radical a difference in the flavor of eggs as there is in potatoes, and equally so as to richness in different pieces of meat. And then, too, when we read—as we do while these lines are being written—that "eggs are quoted in Montana at ten cents each, in Georgia at ten cents a dozen," it makes some difference whether one is using eggs in Montana or Georgia.

A good cook and a good cook book make a good combination, resulting in good cooking, but from the combined efforts of a good cook and a poor cook book and a poor cook, "good Lord deliver us."

Could there be a statute passed against hodgepodge or worthless recipes being published, and another against carelessness in handling them, as there is already one against carelessness in the handling of fire-arms, we should be able to keep dyspepsia and indigestion at bay much more successfully than we now do. But as there is little prospect of making such laws a job in the way of money-making, there is as little prospect of getting them enacted, so we must fall back on the next best thing, and that best thing is honesty in the editing of cook books and intelligence among those who make them test books in cooking. Good Housekeeping will do its best to help the good cause along in both these departments of kitchen economy.

"Too many cooks" need not necessarily "spoil the broth," however many there may be of them, if the materials used are "honest Indian," and if they will all season with knowledge, experience, judgment, and care.—Good Housekeeping.