IMPORTANCE OF VARIETY IN FOODS.
It is likely that in the development of electric cooking inventive America will lead Europe. But in other respects the American cooking of the future will have to borrow many useful hints from the older and more experienced nations of Europe.
We need, especially, greater variety in our dietary. The following chapters will endeavor to indicate the best ways of multiplying our pleasures of the table.
Before beginning with France, which has the largest number of lessons to teach, let us briefly consider the need of variety.
King Philip V of Spain engaged Farinelli, the most famous vocalist of his time, to sing four songs for him, without change of any kind, every evening for ten years. He was not in his right mind, "as a matter of course," one feels tempted to add, and yet are there not at this day, and in this country, many thousands of persons whose musical pabulum consists entirely of half a dozen tunes, which they sing, hum, and whistle decade after decade? For them the countless inspirations of genius given to the world in the last three centuries do not exist at all. And how much enjoyment they thus miss!
Vastly more surprising, since everybody eats, is the fact that the majority of persons are equally ignorant of the countless delicacies invented by ingenious cooks of the past and present. What Sir Henry Thompson wrote, more than a quarter of a century ago, regarding the average Englishman is quite as true to this day of the average American: "He cares more for quantity than quality, desires little variety, and regards as impertinent an innovation in the shape of a new aliment, expecting the same food at the same hour daily."
Breeders of fine animals have long since discovered that nothing is so conducive to health and other desirable qualities as variety in the food given.
A monotonous diet soon palls on the appetite, fails to stimulate the digestive organs, and the result is dyspepsia, loss of pleasure, energy, and earning power, and the shortening of life. Think of the pallid victims of the everlasting hog and hominy in the South! "Hasty pudding and milk," as Artemus Ward sagely observed, "are a harmless diet if eaten moderately, but if you eat it incessantly for six consecutive weeks, it will produce instant death."