The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families

The transcriber trusts that the reader will not take any of the advice offered in this text. Clicking on the images of the carving diagrams will take the reader to a larger, if less clean, version.

M rs. Eaton. BUNGAY Published by J. & R. Childs.


RELATIVE TO
AND EVERY OTHER SUBJECT CONNECTED WITH
BUNGAY: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. AND R. CHILDS. 1823.

N othing is more obvious, than that experience purchased by the sacrifice of independence is bought at too dear a rate. Yet this is the only consolation which remains to many females, while sitting on the ashes of a ruined fortune, and piercing themselves with the recollection of the numerous imprudencies into which they have been led, simply for the want of better information. Not because there is any want of valuable publications, for in the present age they abound; but rather because they contain such a variety of superfluous articles, and are too indiscriminate to become generally useful. A young female, just returned from the hymeneal altar, is ready to exclaim on the first perusal, as the philosopher did who visited the metropolis, 'How many things are here which I do not want!' The volume when purchased is often found to contain what is only or chiefly adapted to those who live in king's houses, or who fare sumptuously every day.
Indeed, it has been the failing of most works of this nature, that they have either been too contracted, or too diffuse; detailed what was unnecessary, or treated superficially what was in fact of most consequence to the great bulk of mankind. If it be objected to the present work, that it exhibits nothing new; that the experiments are founded upon the simplest rules of nature; that most of the things have been rehearsed in various forms; it is not necessary to deny or to conceal the fact, every other consideration having been subordinated to one leading object, and that is general utility. It is but justice however to add, that many of the articles are perfectly original, having been extracted from a variety of unpublished manuscripts, obligingly and expressly furnished in aid of the present undertaking. A great number of outlandish articles are intentionally omitted, as well as a farrago of French trifles and French nonsense, in order to render the work truly worthy of the patronage of the genuine English housekeeper.