Queen Anne's physician, Dr. Lister, declared that "no man can be a good physician who has not a competent knowledge of cookery."
That is the opinion prevalent among the best medical men of to-day, who hold correct advice in regard to diet and the proper cooking of the food recommended to be usually of more importance than drugs.
Many thousands of invalids have been killed by improper or badly cooked food.
The foolish factory and shop girls who look down on kitchen work should be reminded of the fact that none of the contributors to the pages of the various women's journals are more honored than those who are famed for their skill in cooking and giving others the benefit of their experience. Some of these women, like Mrs. Rorer, Marion Harland, Mrs. Lincoln, Christine Terhune Herrick, Janet MacKenzie Hill, Mary Ronald, and Helen S. Wright, have won international repute.
It is a curious fact that whereas in Europe most of the cook books have been written by men, in America the authors of such books are mostly women. From American women, with their keen intelligence and good taste, great things may be expected in the way of gastronomic progress.
After the appearance in the "Century Magazine" of my brief remarks on the nobility of the art of cookery I heard of a wealthy young lady (I hope and believe there were many others) who was impelled, after reading them, to take up cooking and found it so fascinating that she neglected all her other pet diversions. I know educated young ladies who would rather cook than do anything else except, perhaps, go to the theater; they find it "so entertaining and engrossing."
Many anecdotes might be related of women known to fame who love kitchen work. To take only one case: Mrs. Champ Clark, who came so near being first lady of the land, is a noted cook and domestic science expert. One who knows her writes that "she does much of her own cooking, especially when intimate friends dine with her and they rave over her dishes. It has the good old Southern taste, and is minus the fingle-fangle garnishments often employed to cover up inferiority. Mrs. Clark's bread is a delight, and when she has the opportunity she always bakes it herself. She took first prize in a bread-baking contest once. She holds that such labor is not undignified for any of the first ladies of the land. The word 'servant' has been much abused, its early meaning 'to serve' being beautiful, and certainly there is nothing better than to do something for somebody."
There are signs that the ladies of our time will take up the culinary art as a fashionable cult, as did the ladies of the French aristocracy in the seventeenth century.
Many American society women are expert cooks and delight in inventing and concocting diverse dishes. One of the wealthiest women in the world is Mrs. George J. Gould. In summer, in her Adirondack camp, she spends much time in the kitchen helping to cook and to make preserves and jams. She has, it is said, "a perfect genius for combining things and creating new sensations of taste." Her children, boys as well as girls, understand cooking in all its branches. Grace Aspinwall, in the "National Food Magazine" (May, 1910) gives details regarding the culinary doings of other society women—Mrs. Philip Lydig, Mrs. Joseph Widener, Mrs. Norman de R. Whitehouse, Mrs. Oliver Harriman and Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt, Jr.