Marion Harland's Cookery for Beginners / A Series of Familiar Lessons for Young Housekeepers

MARION HARLAND’S COOKERY FOR BEGINNERS

A SERIES OF FAMILIAR LESSONS FOR YOUNG HOUSEKEEPERS BY THE Author of “Common Sense in the Household,” “The Dinner Year Book,” “The Cottage Kitchen,” etc. BOSTON D. LOTHROP COMPANY PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1884, by D. Lothrop & Co. ————— Copyright, 1893, by D. Lothrop Company.


THE question is often asked, “What is the most important branch of culinary knowledge? What the chief requisite in supplying the table well and healthfully?”
The experienced housewife cannot hesitate as to the reply.
Beyond doubt, the ability to make good bread. No one need rise hungry from a table on which is plenty of light, sweet bread, white or brown, and good butter. For the latter item many of us are dependent upon market and grocery. It is hardly just to hold the cook responsible for imperfections in this regard when she has bought the best articles these supply. She is culpable if she fails to see that her board furnishes three times a day a bountiful allowance of what I hope none of my friends in council will ever call “ healthy bread.” The eater may be made or kept healthy by the consumption of nutritious, wholesome, healthful or healthsome food; but the most careful philologists do not speak of edibles as subject to such diseases as may afflict living creatures.
While it is always wise to use none except the best flour in bread-making, it is true that skilful management of an inferior brand will often produce better loaves and biscuits than careless treatment of fine family flour. I say this that none may be discouraged. So far as my observation and experience extend, nothing can remedy the disadvantage of indifferent yeast.