The amount of groceries, milk, and ice we should use per month having been decided upon as nearly as I could, we divided the cash I had spent on the other food during this practice month by 30, to see what allowance this would give me per day. Then, when I went to market I took with me in my marketing purse only the exact sum we allowed for the number of days for which I was marketing. Otherwise I felt sure I should spend too much, as the markets are so tempting and human nature so frail!
Luxuries we did not have; we were young and did not need them and we have never regretted that we saved them in order to have them in our old age. Finding fancy groceries expensive, I did not buy them, but tried to put the money we had allowed ourselves for the table into nutritious food. Before going to market I used to make a rough outline ahead of the meals and take with me a list of what was needed for them. One is much more apt to have variety by thinking ahead, and taking a list to market is an economy, for, while one may change it after getting there, and substitute one article of food for another, still there is less likelihood of getting unnecessary things.
Money spent on a few good cookery books is well spent, for without their suggestions one is apt to fall into a rut, and this the family cannot forgive. No cook left to herself does her best. She needs constant supervision; to be told, “a little more salt here,” “more sugar there,” “slower cooking,” etc., and also to be praised for what is good. If the praise is not given, the cook gets discouraged; if mistakes are overlooked, she gets careless. As some cooks don’t take correction pleasantly, however well given, you will find that it works best to give it at the end of your morning talk when all the ordering is finished.
In beginning with a new cook, it is well to explain at once to her that you want her to lay aside everything that is left over, if only a tablespoonful, putting it into the wire safe or refrigerator for you to decide about the next morning. This is not generally done by American housekeepers, so that, at first, cooks are apt to think you are mean unless you explain to them cheerfully and pleasantly that it is in order to have a greater variety and that this is one of the reasons that the French cookery is so good.
You will find in some of your receipt books about the French pot-au-feu and can learn from this how to manage your own soup pot, using the bones left over from roasts, etc., to start a stock and varying this soup each day with left-overs, such as even a tablespoon of peas or some spinach (strained), or string beans, tomatoes, shreds of lettuce, or creamed oyster plant. This may not sound especially good to you, but my cook now makes soups that surprise me by their good flavor and variety in just this way.
These left-overs also make good salads, sometimes the basis being potatoes, to which is added a few beets, a little shredded lettuce, or, in addition, some meat chopped up, each thing being too small a quantity in itself for any one dish. Thus, a hearty and good salad or a hot dish is evolved from what many people allow to be thrown away. I would advise you to study some of the scientific diet menus that are published now and find out the relative values in nutriment of the different foods. Among the ideas of value to you you will discover that there are many foods, such as cheese, peas, lentils, and beans, which take the place of meat. As, for example, one pound of cheese equals two pounds of beef in nutriment.
Eloise is at my elbow imploring me to stop writing and give her some advice about her dress for Mrs. Blake’s fancy ball, so I mustn’t run on any more. Don’t hesitate to tell me anything that troubles you, for it will be such a pleasure to me if I can help you.
Very affectionately yours,
Jane Prince.
P. S. Some days, when you don’t feel well, it is hard to think of the menu, so I would advise you, whenever you have tried a receipt and found it good, to write in a blank book, kept for the purpose, the name of the dish, the title of the cookery book, and the page on which you found the receipt; thus: “Fish pudding, Mary Ronald’s Century Cook-Book, page 123.” Before you know it you will have a book, not of receipts, but of suggestions, which will tell you just where to look for the sort of dish you want for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. In order to make it perfectly easy to turn at once to any especial dish, divide the blank book, before you make any entries in it, into as many sections as may be convenient, leaving several pages to each section: