The model dairy, too, is a delight, with its upright milk-pans, in which the cream is marked off by a neat little thermometer, and its fire-brick floor. How cool and neat it is! Sometimes a stream of fresh water flows under the floor, as the river runs under the Château of Chenonceaux, where Diane de Poitiers dressed her golden hair.
In the model kitchen is the exquisite range, with its polished batterie de cuisine. Every brilliant saucepan seems to say, "Come and cook in me;" every porcelain-lined pan urges upon one the necessity of stewing nectarines in white sugar; every bright can suggests the word "conserve," which always makes the mouth water; every clatter of the skewers says, "Dainty dishes, come and make me." All this is quite fascinating to an amateur.
No pretty woman, if she did but know it, is ever so pretty as when she is playing cook, and doing it well. The clean white apron, the short, clean, cambric gown, the little cap, the white, bare arms,—the glorified creams and jellies, pies and Charlotte Russe, cakes and puddings, which fall from such fingers are ambrosial food.
There is a great passion, in the properly regulated woman's heart, for the cleanly part of the household work. The love of a dairy is, with many a duchess, part of the business of her rank. In our country, where ladies are compelled to put a hand, once perhaps too often, owing to the insufficiency of servants, to the cooking, it is less a pastime, but a knowledge of it is indispensable. To cook a heavy dinner in hot weather, to wash the dishes afterward, this is sober prose, and by a very dull author; but to make the dessert, this is poetry. In the early morning the hostess should go into her neat dairy to skim the cream; it will be much thicker if she does. She will prepare all things for the desserts of the day. She will make her well-flavoured custard and set it in the ice-chest. She will place her compote of pears securely on a high shelf, away from that ubiquitous cat who has, in most families, so remarkable and so irrepressible an appetite.
Then she should make a visit to the kitchen before dinner, to see to it that the roast birds are garnished with water-cress, that the vegetables are properly prepared, that the dishes are without a smear on their lower surface. All this attention makes good servants and very good dinners.
In the matter of flavouring, the coloured race has us at a great disadvantage. Any old coloured cook can distance her white "Missus" there. This highly gifted race seem to have a sixth sense on the subject of flavours. 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 pour out. It is as if some luxurious and beneficent gift had left us when we were made poets, orators, philosophers, preachers, and authors, when we were given what we proudly term a higher intelligence. Who would not exchange all the cold, mathematical, intellectual supremacy of which we boast for that luscious gift of making pies and puddings à ravir?
The making of pastry is so delicate and so varied a task that we can only say, approach it with cold hands, cold ice-water, roll it on a marble slab, then bake it in a very hot oven.
Learn to stew well. Stew your fruit in a porcelain stewpan before putting it in your tarts. It is one of the most wholesome forms of cookery; a French novelist calls the stewpan the "favourite arm, the talisman of the cook." A celebrated physician said that the action of the stewpan was like that of the stomach, and it is a great gain if we can help that along. Stewing gooseberries, cherries, and even apples with sugar and lemon-peel before putting them in the tart, ensures a good pie.
Whipped white of egg is an elegant addition to most dessert dishes, and every lady should provide herself with wire whisks.
Whipped to a strong froth with sugar, and lemon or vanilla flavouring, this garnish makes an ordinary into a superior pudding. New-laid eggs are exceedingly difficult to beat up well. Take those which have been laid several days. Have a deep bowl with a circular bottom, and in beating the eggs keep the whisk as much as possible in an upright position, moving it very rapidly; a little boiling water, a tablespoonful to two eggs, and a teaspoonful of sifted sugar put to them before beating is commenced, facilitates the operation.