Part 3

But why waste time in asserting these self-evident facts? They are acknowledged and proclaimed every day by suffering humanity; yet the difficulty is not remedied. Is there a remedy, then? Yes. This is a free country, yet Dame Fashion is the Queen. Make it the fashion, then, that the art and science of cookery shall be classed among the necessary accomplishments of every well-educated lady. This is a manifest duty on the part of ladies of influence and position, even if the object be only for the benefit of the country at large. Let these ladies be accomplished artists in cookery. The rest will soon follow. There will be plenty of imitators.

Many ladies of rank in England have written valuable books on cookery, and on the effects resulting from the want of the knowledge. None wrote better than Lady Morgan. Speaking of clubs, she says:

“The social want of the times, however, brought its remedy along with it, and the reaction was astounding.... Then it was that clubs arose--homes of refuge to destitute celibacy, chapels of ease to discontented husbands. There, men could dine, like gentlemen and Christians, upon all the _friandises_ of the French kitchen, much cheaper and far more wholesomely than at their own tables upon the tough, half-sodden fibres of the national roast and boiled, or on the hazardous resources of hash, gravy soup, and marrow puddings.

“Moral England gave in. The English ‘home’--that temple of the heart, that centre of all the virtues--was left to the solitary enjoyment of the English wives.

“To your _casseroles_, then, women of Britain! Would you, with a falconer’s voice, lure your faithless tassels back again? Apply to the practical remedy of your wrongs; proceed to the reform of your domestic government, and turn your thoughts to that art which, coming into action every day in the year during the longest life, includes within its circles the whole philosophy of economy and order, the preservation of good health, and the tone of good society--and all peculiarly within your province.”

BREAKFAST.

After a fast of twelve or thirteen hours, the system requires something substantial as preparation for the labors of the day; consequently, I consider the American breakfasts more desirable for an active people than those of France or England.

In France, the first breakfast consists merely of a cup of coffee and a roll. A second breakfast, at eleven o’clock, is more substantial, dishes being served which may be eaten with a fork (_déjeuner à la fourchette_), as a chop with a potato _soufflé_. No wonder there are _cafés_ in Paris where American breakfasts are advertised, for it takes one of our nationality a very short time to become dissatisfied with this meagre first meal.

In England, breakfast is a very informal meal. After some fatiguing occasion, if one should desire the luxury of an extra nap, he is not mercilessly expected at the table simply because it is the breakfast-hour; for there the breakfast-hour is any time one chances to be ready for it. Gentlemen and ladies read their papers and letters in the breakfast-room--a practice which, of course, is more agreeable for guests than convenient for servants. However, if one can afford it, why not? This habit requires a little different setting of the table. It is decorated with flowers or plants, and upon it are placed several kinds of breads, fruits, melons, potted meats, and freshest of boiled eggs. But the substantial dishes must be served from the sideboard, where they are kept in silver chafing-dishes over spirit-lamps. As members of the family or guests enter, the servant helps them each once, then leaves the room. If they have further wants, they help themselves or ring a bell.

The American breakfast is all placed upon the table, unless oatmeal porridge should be served as a first course. Changes of plates are also necessary when cakes requiring sirup or when melons or fruits are served.

Let us now set the American breakfast-table.

The coffee-urn and silver service necessary are placed in a straight line before the hostess. The one or two kinds of substantials are set before the host; vegetables or _entrées_ are placed on the sides. Do not have them askew. It is quite as easy for an attendant to place a dish in a straight line as in an oblique angle with every other dish on the table.

I advocate the general use of oatmeal porridge for breakfast. Nothing is more wholesome, and nothing more relished after a little use. If not natural, the taste should be acquired. It is invaluable for children, and of no less benefit for persons of mature years. Nearly all the little Scotch and Irish children are brought up on it. When Queen Victoria first visited Scotland, she noticed the particularly ruddy and healthy appearance of the children, and, after inquiry about their diet and habits, became at once a great advocate for the use of porridge. She used it for her own children, and it was at once introduced very generally into England. Another of its advantages is that serving it as a first course enables the cook to prepare many dishes, such as steaks, omelets, etc., just as the family sit down to breakfast; and when the porridge is eaten, she is ready with the other dishes “smoking hot.”

It would be well if more attention were given to breakfasts than is usually bestowed. The table might have a fresher look with flowers or a flowering plant in the centre. The breakfast napery is very pretty now, with colored borders to suit the color of the room, the table-cloth and napkins matching.

The beefsteaks should be varied, for instance, one morning with a tomato sauce, another _à la maître d’hôtel_, or with a brown sauce, or garnished with water-cresses, green pease, fried potatoes, potato-balls, etc., instead of being always the same beefsteak, too frequently overcooked or undercooked, and often floating in butter.

Melons, oranges, compotes, any and all kinds of fruits, should be served at breakfast. In the season, sliced tomatoes, with a French or _Mayonnaise_ dressing, is a most refreshing breakfast dish. A great resource is in the variety of omelets, and with a little practice, nothing is so easily made. One morning it may be a plain omelet; another, with macaroni and cheese; another, with fine herbs; another, with little strips of ham or with oysters. The English receipt on page 148 makes a pleasant change for a veal cutlet. When chickens are no longer very young, the receipt on page 175 (deviled chicken), with a Cunard sauce or a white sauce, is another change. The different arrangements of meat-balls and croquettes, with tomato, cream, apple, or brown sauces, are delicious when they are freshly and carefully made.

As there are hundreds of delicious breakfast dishes, which only require a little attention and interest to understand, how unfortunate it must be for a man to have a wife who has nothing for breakfast but an alternation of juiceless beefsteak, greasy and ragged mutton-chops, and swimming hash, with unwholesome hot breads to make up deficiencies!

Breakfast parties are very fashionable, being less expensive than dinners, and just as satisfactory to guests. They are served generally about ten o’clock, although any time from ten to twelve o’clock may be chosen for the purpose. It seems to me that ten o’clock, or even nine o’clock (it depends upon the persons invited), is the preferable hour. Guests might prefer to retain their strength by a repast at home if the breakfast-hour were at twelve o’clock, and then the fine breakfast would be less appreciated. At breakfast parties, with the exception of the silver service being on the table all the time for tea and coffee, the dishes are served in courses precisely as for dinner.

In England, breakfast parties are perhaps more in favor than lunch parties, especially among the _literati_. Macaulay said, when extolling the merits of breakfast parties as compared with all other entertainments, “Dinner parties are mere formalities; but you invite a man to breakfast because you want to see _him_.”

Three bills of fare are given for breakfast parties, which will show the order of different courses:

_Winter Breakfast._

1st Course.--Broiled sardines on toast, garnished with slices of lemon. Tea, coffee, or chocolate.

2d Course.--Larded sweet-breads, garnished with French pease. Cold French rolls or petits pains. Sauterne.

3d Course.--Small fillets or the tender cuts from porter-house-steaks, served on little square slices of toast, with mushrooms.

4th Course.--Fried oysters; breakfast puffs.

5th Course.--Fillets of grouse (each fillet cut in two), on little thin slices of fried mush, garnished with potatoes à la Parisienne.

6th Course.--Sliced oranges, with sugar.

7th Course.--Waffles, with maple sirup.

_Early Spring Breakfast._

1st Course.--An Havana orange for each person, dressed on a fork (page 338).

2d Course.--Boiled shad, maître d’hôtel sauce; Saratoga potatoes. Tea or coffee.

3d Course.--Lamb-chops, tomato sauce. Château Yquem.

4th Course.--Omelet, with green pease, or garnished with parsley and thin diamonds of ham, or with shrimps, etc., etc.

5th Course.--Fillets of beef, garnished with water-cresses and little round radishes; muffins.

6th Course.--Rice pancakes, with maple sirup.

_Summer Breakfast._

1st Course.--Melons.

2d Course.--Little fried perch, smelts, or trout, with a sauce Tartare, the dish garnished with shrimps and olives. Coffee, tea, or chocolate.

3d Course.--Young chickens, sautéd, with cream-gravy, surrounded with potatoes à la neige. Claret.

4th Course.--Poached eggs on anchovy-toast.

5th Course.--Little fillets of porter-house-steaks, with tomatoes à la Mayonnaise.

6th Course.--Peaches, quartered, sweetened, and half-frozen.

LUNCH.

This is more especially a ladies’ meal. If one gives a lunch party, ladies alone are generally invited. It is an informal meal on ordinary occasions, when every thing is placed upon the table at once. A servant remains in the room only long enough to serve the first round of dishes, then leaves, supposing that confidential conversation may be desired. Familiar friends often “happen in” to lunch, and are always to be expected.

Some fashionable ladies have the reputation of having very fine lunches--chops, chickens, oysters, salads, chocolate, and many other good things being provided; and others, just as fashionable, have nothing but a cup of tea or chocolate, some thin slices of bread and butter, and cold meat; or, if of Teutonic taste, nothing but cheese, crackers, and ale, thus reserving the appetite for dinner.

In entertaining at lunch, the dishes are served in the same manner as for dinner. Each dish is served as a separate course. It may be placed on the table before the hostess, if the lunch party is not very large; but it is generally served from the side. The table is also decorated in the same manner as for dinner, with a centre-piece of flowers or of fruit, and with various _compotiers_ around the centre, containing fruits, _bonbons_, little fancy cakes, Indian or other preserves, etc. Other ornaments, in Dresden china, majolica ware, Venetian or French glass, etc., filled with flowers, are often seen. Little dishes of common glass in different shapes, as crosses, quarter-moons, etc., about an inch high (see cuts, page 58), are also filled with flowers, and placed at symmetrical distances. As the last-mentioned decorations are very cheap, every one may indulge in them, and consider that there are no more beautiful ornaments, after all.

The lunch-table is generally covered with a colored table-cloth.

The principal dishes served are _patés_, croquettes, shell-fish, game, salads--in fact, all kinds of _entrées_ and cold desserts, or I may say dishes are preferred which do not require carving. _Bouillon_ is generally served as a first course in _bouillon_ cups, which are quite like large coffee-cups, or coffee or tea cups may be used, although any dinner soup served in soup-plates is _en regle_. A cup of chocolate, with whipped cream on the top, is often served as another course.

I will give five bills of fare, reserved from five very nice little lunch parties:

_Mrs. Collier’s Lunch_ (February 2d).

Bouillon; sherry. Roast oysters on half-shell; Sauterne. Little vols-au-vent of oysters. Thin scollops, or cuts of fillet of beef, braised; French pease; Champagne. Chicken croquettes, garnished with fried parsley; potato croquettes. Cups of chocolate, with whipped cream. Salad--lettuce dressed with tarragon. Biscuits glacés; fruit-ices. Fruit. Bonbons.

_Mrs. Sprague’s Lunch_ (March 10th).

Raw oysters on half-shell. Bouillon; sherry. Little vols-au-vent of sweet-breads. Lamb-chops; tomato sauce; Champagne. Chicken croquettes; French pease. Snipe; potatoes à la Parisienne. Salad of lettuce. Neuchâtel cheese; milk wafers, toasted. Chocolate Bavarian cream, molded in little cups, with a spoonful of peach marmalade on each plate. Vanilla ice-cream; fancy cakes. Fruit.

_Mrs. Miller’s Lunch_ (January 6th).

Bouillon. Deviled crabs; olives; claret punch. Sweet-breads à la Milanaise. Fillets of grouse, currant jelly; Saratoga potatoes. Roman punch. Fried oysters, garnished with chow-chow. Chicken salad, or, rather, Mayonnaise of chicken. Ramikins. Wine jelly, and whipped cream. Napolitaine ice-cream. Fruit. Bonbons.

_Mrs. Wells’s Lunch._

Bouillon; sherry. Fried frogs’ legs; French pease. Smelts, sauce Tartare; potatoes à la Parisienne. Chicken in scallop-shells; Champagne. Sweet-bread croquettes; tomato sauce. Fried cream. Salad; Romaine. Welsh rare-bit. Peaches and cream, frozen; fancy cakes. Fruits.

_Mrs. Filley’s Lunch._

Mock-turtle soup; English milk-punch. Lobster-chops; claret. Mushrooms in crust. Lamb-chops, en papillote. Chetney of slices of baked fillet of beef. Chocolate, with whipped cream. Spinach on tongue slices (page 145), sauce Tartare. Roast quail, bread sauce (page 185). Cheese; lettuce, garnished with slices of radishes and nasturtium blossoms, French dressing. Mince-meat patties; Champagne. Ices and fancy cakes. Fruit.

GENTLEMEN’S SUPPERS.

As ladies have exclusive lunches, gentlemen have exclusive suppers. Nearly the same dishes are served for suppers as for lunches, although gentlemen generally prefer more game and wine. Sometimes they like fish suppers, with two or three or more varieties of fish, when nightmare might be written at the end of the bill of fare.

If one has not a reliable cook, it is very convenient to give these entertainments, as the hostess has a chance to station herself in the _cuisine_, and personally superintend the supper.

One bill of fare is given for a fish supper:

1st Course.--Raw oysters served in a block of ice (page 113). [The ice has a pretty effect in the gas-light.]

2d Course.--Shad, maître d’hôtel sauce, garnished with smelts.

3d Course.--Sweet-breads and tomato sauce.

4th Course.--Boiled sardines, on toast.

5th Course.--Deviled chicken, Cunard sauce.

6th Course.--Fillets of duck, with salad of lettuce.

7th Course.--Mayonnaise of salmon, garnished with shrimps.

8th Course.--Welsh rare-bit.

9th Course.--Charlotte Russe.

10th Course.--Ice-cream and cake.

EVENING PARTIES.

If people can afford to give large evening parties, it is less trouble and more satisfactory to place the supper in the hands of the confectioner.

For card parties or small companies of thirty or forty persons, to meet some particular stranger, or for literary reunions, the trouble need not be great. People would entertain more if the trouble were less.

If one has a regular reception-evening, ices, cake, and chocolate are quite enough; or for chocolate might be substituted sherry or a bowl of punch.

For especial occasions for a company of thirty or forty, a table prettily set with some flowers, fruit, chicken salad, croquettes or sweet-breads and pease, one or two or more kinds of ice-cream and cakes, is quite sufficient. Either coffee and tea, Champagne, a bowl of punch or of eggnog, would be sufficient in the way of beverage.

SOMETHING ABOUT ECONOMY.

I am indebted to a French girl living in our family for the substance of this chapter. Her parents being obliged to live in a most economical way in St. Louis, still had an uncommonly good table. One resource was a little garden, in which small compass were raised enough onions, tomatoes, carrots, and a few other vegetables, to nearly supply the family. A small bed of four feet square, surrounded by a pretty border of lettuce, was large enough for raising all necessary herbs, such as sage, summer savory, thyme, etc. Little boxes in the kitchen windows contained growing parsley, ever ready for use.

I give receipts for three of their soups--the onion, vegetable _purée_, and potato soups being most excellent, and costing not over from five to ten cents each. One of their dinner dishes was a heart (10 cents) stuffed, baked two or three hours, and served with a brown gravy and an onion garnish (see receipt). Still another was a two-pound round-steak (20 cents), spread with a bread and sage stuffing, then rolled, tied, floured, seasoned on top, then baked, basting it often. It was a pretty dish, with tomato sauce around it. Sometimes a cheap fish was cut in slices, egged and bread-crumbed, fried, and garnished with fried potatoes. They had always a salad for dinner, prepared from their border of lettuce, some cold potatoes, cold beans, or other vegetable. A fine breakfast dish was of kidneys (5 cents). Few Americans know how to cook kidneys, and butchers often throw them away; yet in France they are considered a great delicacy.

Their _répertoire_ of cheap dishes was large; so there was always a change for, at least, each day of the week. A crumb of bread was never wasted. All odd morsels were dried in the oven, pounded, and put away in a tin-box, ready for breading cutlets cut from any pieces of mutton or veal, and for many other purposes.

Any pieces of suet or drippings were clarified and put one side, to be used for frying. Remains of cooked vegetables of any kind were saved for soups and sauces. Not a slice of a tomato nor leaf of a cabbage was thrown away.

If they had butter that was not entirely sweet, they added more salt, a little soda, brought it to a boil on the stove, and then put it away in a little crock. By allowing the settlings to remain at the bottom, the butter became entirely sweet, and not too salt for cooking purposes.

Chickens, cutlets, etc., were larded at this table. Now, just to mention the word “larding” is to overwhelm a common cook; and to require it, is to rivet in the minds of most housewives the entire impracticability of a whole receipt in which it is an item. Pieces of salt pork or breakfast bacon should always be kept in the house. A pound of it, which is not expensive, may last a long time, as it requires very little for flavoring many things; then, if one has any idea of sewing, or what it is to push a needle through any thing, one can lard. It only requires a larding-needle, which costs fifteen cents, and which should last a century. By placing little cut strips of pork in the end of the needle, as is explained among “directions,” then drawing the needle through parts of the meat, leaving the pork midway, this wonderfully difficult operation is accomplished. It is only a few minutes’ pastime to lard turkeys, chickens, birds, cutlets, sweet-breads, etc., which gives to them flavor and style.

Limited in fortune as were this family, they were never without stock at hand. Their meat for croquettes, patties, etc., had served a duty to the soup-kettle. If a chicken was to be boiled for the table, it was thrown into the stock-pot while the soup was simmering, and thus it and the chicken were both benefited.

Their meat dishes were often garnished with little potato-balls, cooked _à la Parisienne_, or simply boiled. This seemed extravagant; but as a French vegetable-cutter only costs twenty-five cents, and the balls can be cut very rapidly--all the parings boiled and mashed serving another time as potato-cakes--there was nothing wasted, and little time lost.

In short, this household (and it is a sample of nearly all French families of limited means) lived well on little more than many an American family would throw away.

Let me give five bills of fare of their dinners, the second of which is partly prepared from the remains of the first day:

Beef soup (soup bone), 10 cents. Veal blanquette and boiled potatoes (knuckle of veal), 15 cents. Salad of sliced tomatoes, 2 or 3 cents. Boiled rice, with a border of stewed small pears (green, or of common variety), 10 cents. Onion or bean soup, 5 cents. Fish (en matelote), 15 cents. Croquettes (made of the remains of the cold beef-soup meat, and rice), with a tomato sauce. Salad of cold boiled potatoes. Fried bread-pudding.

* * * * *

Potato soup. Round steak, rolled (page 140), with baked, parboiled onions, 25 cents. Salad of lettuce. Apple-fritters, with sirup.

* * * * *

Tomato soup. Beef à la mode, with spinach, 40 cents (enough for two dinners). Salad of potatoes and parsley. Rice-pudding.

* * * * *

Noodle soup. Mutton ragout, with potatoes, 25 cents. Noodles and stuffed tomatoes. Cheese omelet.

DIRECTIONS AND EXPLANATIONS.

BOILING.

Fowls or joints should be tied or well skewered into shape before boiling.

Every thing should be _gently_ simmered, rather than fast boiled, in order to be tender. The water should never be allowed to stop simmering before the article is quite done. A pudding is thus entirely ruined.

The kettle should be kept covered, merely raising the cover at times to remove the scum. Boiled fowl, with a white sauce, is a favorite English dish, and very nice it is if properly prepared.

FRYING.

Frying means cooking by _immersion_ in hot fat, butter, or oil. There is no English word for what is called frying in a spoonful of fat, first on one side, and then on the other. _Sauté_ is the French word, and should be Anglicized. Ordinary cooks, instead of frying, invariably _sauté_ every thing. Almost every article that is usually _sautéd_ is much better and more economical _fried_; as, for instance, oysters, fish, birds, cutlets, crabs, etc.

The fat should always be tested before the article is immersed. A little piece of bread may be thrown in, and if it colors quickly, the fat is ready, and not before. The temperature of hot grease, it will be remembered, is much greater than that of boiling water, which can not exceed a certain degree of heat, whether it boil slow or fast. Hot grease reaches a very high degree of heat, and consequently the surface of any thing is almost instantaneously hardened or crisped when thrown into it. The inside is thus kept free from grease, and is quickly cooked. An article first dipped in egg and bread-crumbs should be _entirely_ free from grease when thus cooked, as the egg is hardened the instant it touches the hot grease, and the oyster, croquette, cutlet, or sweet-bread is perfectly protected. The same fat can be used repeatedly for frying the same thing. The fat in which fish is fried should not be again used for any thing except fish. Professional cooks have several frying-kettles, in which fat is kept for frying different things. A little kettle for frying potatoes exclusively should always be at hand.

One will see that this style of cooking is economical, as there is very little waste of fat; and then fried articles need no other dressing.

After frying fish, meat, or vegetables, let the fat stand about five minutes; strain, and then return it to the kettle, which should always be kept covered, after it is once cold.