In the early morning we can imagine a lady going into her neat kitchen to prepare the desserts for the day, and finding it very agreeable. She will set her well-flavored custard away in the ice-chest with a serene knowledge of how good it will be at dinner, and place her compote of pears securely on a high shelf, away from that ubiquitous visitor the cat, who has in most families so remarkable and irrepressible an appetite. She can take a turn at the milk-pan, and skim off the cream herself if she pleases. It will be much thicker if she does. It is a not unpleasant duty to steal into the kitchen ten minutes before dinner, to see to it that the roast birds are garnished with watercresses, that the vegetables are properly prepared, that the silver dishes are without a smear. All this sort of attention makes good servants, and very good dinners.
It is often one of the Home Amusements for a party of girls to try their hand at clear-starching. Statira, indeed, does not like this; but they should learn to flute their own ruffles. Who knows but they may marry an army officer, and go to Nebraska?
All sorts of fine washing and ironing, all sorts of doing up of lace, of renovating old silks, etc., may be made into Home Amusements, if done cheerfully, and in the right spirit. The modern embroidery requiring pressing, the many modern accomplishments of lace-making, appliqué, etc., lead a young lady into the kitchen, and she can derive a vast deal of amusement from this room, if she chooses.
One of the holiest of duties is to learn how to cook for the sick. This requires a great deal of patient talent, and it is a sufficient reward if we can see the beloved convalescent tasting our arrowroot and sago, and good beef-tea and jelly, with approbation.
Among Home Amusements, how many reckon the jolly party assembled to make the wedding-cake? Susan and Sarah shall stone the raisins, Charlotte and Clara shall beat the eggs, Louisa shall slice the citron, Matilda, who has a judicial mind, shall weigh! Then all shall stir, and who shall be the one to get the ring?
The baking is momentous. Mamma had better be consulted here. And then the great question of the icing! Oh! how anxious! The mince-pies require another season of deep thought and much very stringent stirring. The excellent brandy, the dash of orange curaçoa, must be poured out by the lady, else why is it that ever after the mince-pie seems to lack that inspiriting and hidden fire? We read that there is many a slip between the cup and the lip!
The modern elegant devices by which strawberries, violets, and orange-blossoms are candied in sugar, effect a Home Amusement for dainty-fingered girls; and since the establishment in Boston of a cooking club, at which each young lady is to contribute some article of her own cooking, we see signs of a revival in all branches of the great art of cookery which is most encouraging. It was a notable old maxim among Puritan mothers that every wife should know how to make bread, and, perhaps, it has not died out yet.
Looking at the subject broadly, every thoroughly accomplished woman should know how to do everything, from making a soup up to a cup of tea—the Alpha and the Omega of cookery.
In the matter of flavoring, the colored race have us at a great disadvantage. Any old colored cook can distance her white “Missus” here. This highly-gifted race seem to have a sixth sense on the subject of flavors. The rich tropical nature breaks out in reminiscences of orange-blossoms, pineapple, guava, cocoanut, and Mandarin orange. Never can the descendants of the poor, half-starved, frozen exiles of Plymouth Rock hope to achieve such custards and puddings as these Ethiops turn out. And as to the juicyness of their fried oysters and their inimitable terrapin, who has ever approached them? It is as if a luxurious and tasteful, beneficent power had left us, when we were given what we proudly call a “higher intelligence.” Who would not exchange all the cold mathematical supremacy in which we glory for that luscious gift of making pies and puddings à ravir?