Chapter I: Preface: To Revised Edition

The little book now revised and sent out with some slight additions, remains substantially the same as when first issued in 1880. In the midst of always increasing cookery-books, it has had a firm constituency of friends, especially in the South, where its necessity was first made plain. To enlarge it in any marked degree would violate the original plan, for which the critic will please read the pages headed "Introductory," where he or she will find full explanation of the growth and purpose of the book. Whoever desires more receipts and more elaborate forms of preparation must look for their sources in the bibliography at the end, since their introduction in these pages would practically nullify the title, proved true by years of testing at the hands of inexperienced housekeepers, whose warm words have long been very pleasant to the author of "The Easiest Way."

NEW YORK, June, 1893.

CONTENTS.

PART FIRST.

PAGE

INTRODUCTORY 5

CHAPTER.

I. THE HOUSE: SITUATION AND ARRANGEMENT 11
II. THE HOUSE: ITS VENTILATION 19
III. DRAINAGE AND WATER-SUPPLY 27
IV. THE DAY'S WORK 35
V. FIRES, LIGHTS, AND THINGS TO WORK WITH 45
VI. WASHING-DAY AND CLEANING IN GENERAL 54
VII. THE BODY AND ITS COMPOSITION 68
VIII. FOOD AND ITS LAWS 73
IX. THE RELATIONS OF FOOD TO HEALTH 80
X. THE CHEMISTRY OF ANIMAL FOOD 90
XI. THE CHEMISTRY OF VEGETABLE FOOD 100
XII. CONDIMENTS AND BEVERAGES 110

PART SECOND.

STOCK AND SEASONING 119 SOUPS 122 FISH 131 MEATS 144 POULTRY 161 SAUCES AND SALADS 173 EGGS AND BREAKFAST DISHES 180 TEA, COFFEE, &C 193 VEGETABLES 197 BREAD AND BREAKFAST CAKES 208 CAKE 221 PASTRY AND PIES 232 PUDDINGS, BOILED AND BAKED 238 CUSTARDS, CREAMS, JELLIES, &C 245 CANNING AND PRESERVING 252 PICKLES AND CATCHUPS 257 CANDIES 259 SICK-ROOM COOKERY 261 HOUSEHOLD HINTS 270 HINTS TO TEACHERS 280 LESSONS FOR PRACTICE CLASS 282 TWENTY TOPICS FOR CLASS USE 285 LIST OF AUTHORITIES REFERRED TO 286 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS 287 BIBLIOGRAPHY 288 INDEX 289

_Introductory._

That room or toleration for another "cook-book" can exist in the public mind, will be denied at once, with all the vigor to be expected from a people overrun with cook-books, and only anxious to relegate the majority of them to their proper place as trunk-linings and kindling-material. The minority, admirable in plan and execution, and elaborate enough to serve all republican purposes, are surely sufficient for all the needs that have been or may be. With Mrs. Cornelius and Miss Parloa, Marion Harland and Mrs. Whitney, and innumerable other trustworthy authorities, for all every-day purposes, and Mrs. Henderson for such festivity as we may at times desire to make, another word is not only superfluous but absurd; in fact, an outrage on common sense, not for one instant to be justified.

Such was my own attitude and such my language hardly a year ago; yet that short space of time has shown me, that, whether the public admit the claim, or no, one more cook-book MUST BE. And this is why:--

A year of somewhat exceptional experience--that involved in building up several cooking-schools in a new locality, demanding the most thorough and minute system to assure their success and permanence--showed the inadequacies of any existing hand-books, and the necessities to be met in making a new one. Thus the present book has a twofold character, and represents, not only the ordinary receipt or cook book, usable in any part of the country and covering all ordinary household needs, but covers the questions naturally arising in every lesson given, and ending in statements of the most necessary points in household science. There are large books designed to cover this ground, and excellent of their kind, but so cumbrous in form and execution as to daunt the average reader.

Miss Corson's "Cooking-School Text-Book" commended itself for its admirable plainness and fullness of detail, but was almost at once found impracticable as a system for my purposes; her dishes usually requiring the choicest that the best city market could afford, and taking for granted also a taste for French flavorings not yet common outside of our large cities, and to no great extent within them. To utilize to the best advantage the food-resources of whatever spot one might be in, to give information on a hundred points suggested by each lesson, yet having no place in the ordinary cook-book, in short, _to teach household science as well as cooking_, became my year's work; and it is that year's work which is incorporated in these pages. Beginning with Raleigh, N.C., and lessons given in a large school there, it included also a seven-months' course at the Deaf and Dumb Institute, and regular classes for ladies. Straight through, in those classes, it became my business to say, "This is no infallible system, warranted to give the whole art of cooking in twelve lessons. All I can do for you is to lay down clearly certain fixed principles; to show you how to economize thoroughly, yet get a better result than by the expenditure of perhaps much more material. Before our course ends, you will have had performed before you every essential operation in cooking, and will know, so far as I can make you know, prices, qualities, constituents, and physiological effects of every type of food. Beyond this, the work lies in your own hands."

Armed with manuals,--American, English, French,--bent upon systematizing the subject, yet finding none entirely adequate, gradually, and in spite of all effort to the contrary, I found that my teaching rested more and more on my own personal experience as a housekeeper, both at the South and at the North. The mass of material in many books was found confusing and paralyzing, choice seeming impossible when a dozen methods were given. And for the large proportion of receipts, directions were so vague that only a trained housekeeper could be certain of the order of combination, or results when combined. So from the crowd of authorities was gradually eliminated a foundation for work; and on that foundation has risen a structure designed to serve two ends.

For the young housekeeper, beginning with little or no knowledge, but eager to do and know the right thing, not alone for kitchen but for the home as a whole, the list of topics touched upon in Part I. became essential. That much of the knowledge compressed there should have been gained at home, is at once admitted: but, unfortunately, few homes give it; and the aim has been to cover the ground concisely yet clearly and attractively. As to Part II., it does not profess to be the whole art of cooking, but merely the line of receipts most needed in the average family, North or South. Each receipt has been tested personally by the writer, often many times; and each one is given so minutely that failure is well-nigh impossible, if the directions are intelligently followed. A few distinctively Southern dishes are included, but the ground covered has drawn from all sources; the series of excellent and elaborate manuals by well-known authors having contributed here and there, but the majority of rules being, as before said, the result of years of personal experiment, or drawn from old family receipt-books.

To facilitate the work of the teacher, however, a scheme of lessons is given at the end, covering all that can well be taught in the ordinary school year: each lesson is given with page references to the receipts employed, while a shorter and more compact course is outlined for the use of classes for ladies. A list of topics is also given for school use; it having been found to add greatly to the interest of the course to write each week the story of some ingredient in the lesson for the day, while a set of questions, to be used at periodical intervals, fixes details, and insures a certain knowledge of what progress has been made. The course covers the chemistry and physiology of food, as well as an outline of household science in general, and may serve as a text-book wherever such study is introduced. It is hoped that this presentation of the subject will lessen the labor necessary in this new field, though no text-book can fully take the place of personal enthusiastic work.

That training is imperatively demanded for rich and poor alike, is now unquestioned; but the mere taking a course of cooking-lessons alone does not meet the need in full. The present book aims to fill a place hitherto unoccupied; and precisely the line of work indicated there has been found the only practical method in a year's successful organization of schools at various points. Whether used at home with growing girls, in cooking-clubs, in schools, or in private classes, it is hoped that the system outlined and the authorities referred to will stimulate interest, and open up a new field of work to many who have doubted if the food question had any interest beyond the day's need, and who have failed to see that nothing ministering to the best life and thought of this wonderful human body could ever by any chance be rightfully called "common or unclean." We are but on the threshold of the new science. If these pages make the way even a little plainer, the author will have accomplished her full purpose, and will know that in spite of appearances there is "room for one more."

HELEN CAMPBELL.

_THE EASIEST WAY._