All these things the women’s household and cook-books will be, nay, are, gradually teaching, and that which Charles Carter, “lately cook to his Grace the Duke of Argyle,” wrote in 1730 may still hold good: “’Twill be very easy,” said Master Carter, “for an ordinary Cook when he is well-instructed in the most Elegant Parts of his Profession to lower his Hand at any time; and he that can excellently perform in a Courtly and Grand Manner, will never be at a Loss in any other.” When this future knowledge and adjustment come we shall be free from the tendencies which Mistress Glasse, after her outspoken manner, describes of her own generation: “So much is the blind folly of this age,” cries the good woman, “that they would rather be imposed upon by a French booby than give encouragement to a good English cook.”
Economic changes such as we have indicated must in measurable time ensue. The science and the art of conducting a house are now obtaining recognition in our schools. Not long, and the knowledge will be widespread. Its very existence, and the possibility of its diffusion, is a result of the nineteenth century movement for the broadening of women’s knowledge and the expansion of their interests and independence—this wedded with the humane conviction that the wisest and fruitfullest use of scientific deduction and skill is in the bettering of human life. Behind and giving potence to these impulses is the fellowship, liberty, and equality of human kind—the great idea of democracy.
Already we have gone back to the wholesomeness of our English forebears’ estimate that the physician and cook are inseparable. Further still, we may ultimately retrace our ideas, and from the point of view of economics and sociology declare that with us, as with the old Jews and Greeks, the priest and the cook are one.
PLAGIARIZING HUMORS OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
And this I sweare by blackest brooke of hell,
I am no pick-purse of another’s wit.
Sir Philip Sidney
Yet these mine owne, I wrong not other men,
Nor traffique farther then this happy clime,
Nor filch from Portes, nor from Petrarchs pen,
A fault too common in this latter time.
Divine Sir Philip, I avouch thy writ,
I am no pick-purse of anothers wit.
Michael Drayton
A thing always becomes his at last who says it best, and thus makes it his own.
James Russell Lowell