I quote it, partly that I may thank the author, principally that I may borrow the illustration. The heavenly airs that really temper the torrid heats of the kitchen are loving thoughts of those for whom the house-mother makes the home. There is a wealth of meaning in the homely old saying about “putting one’s name in the pot.” It is one thing, I submit to the advocates of co-operative housekeeping, whether big John’s and little John’s and Mamie’s and Susie’s and Tommy’s meals are prepared according to the prescriptions of a salaried chef, in the mammoth boilers, steamers and bakers of an “establishment” along with the sustenance of fifty other families, or whether the tender mother, in her “order of the day,” remembers that while Papa likes smart, tingling dashes of cayenne, garlic, and curry, the baby-tongues of her brood would cry out at the same; that Mamie has an aversion to a dish much liked by her brothers and sisters; that Susie is delicate, and cannot digest the strong meat that is the gift of flesh and brains to the rest. So Papa gets his spiced ragoût under a tiny cover—hot-and-hot—and the plainer “stew,” which was its base, nourishes the bairns. Mamie is not forced to fast while the rest feast, and by pale Susie’s plate is set the savory “surprise,” which is the visible expression of loving kindness, always wise and unforgetting.
You remember the legend that tells how Elizabeth of Hungary, having been forbidden by her lord to carry food to the poor, was met one day by him outside the castle walls, as she was bearing a lapful of meat and bread to her pensioners. Louis demanding sternly what she carried in her robe, she was obliged to show him the forbidden burden. “Whereupon,” says the chronicler, “the food was miraculously changed, for his eyes, to a lapful of roses, red-and-white, and, his mind disabused of suspicion, he graciously bade her pass on whithersoever she would.”
I have bethought me many times of the legend when I have seen upon very modest tables such proofs of thoughtful recollection of the peculiar tastes and needs of the flock to which the home caterer ministered as made my heart warm and eyes fill, and threw, to my imagination, chaplets lovelier than Elizabeth’s roses around the platter and bowl. This is the true poetry of serving, and the loving appreciation of it is the reward, rich and all-sufficient, of thought, care, and toil.
A few words more before we proceed, in due order, to business. This volume is not an amendment to “General Receipts, No. 1 of the Common-Sense Series.” Still less is it intended as a substitute for it. I have carefully avoided the repetition, in this volume, of a single receipt which appeared in that. This is designed to be the second story in the edifice of domestic economy, the materials of which I have accumulated since the first was completed. As money makes money, and a snow-ball gathers snow, so receipts, new, valuable, and curious, flowed in upon me after “No. 1” was given to the world. Some of the earliest to reach me were so good that I began a fresh compilation by the time that book was fairly off the press.
Let me say here what you may find useful in your own researches and collections. My best ally in the classification and preservation of the materials for this undertaking has been the “The Household Treasury,” published by Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, Philadelphia, and arranged by a lady of that city. It is a pretty volume of blank pages, a certain number of which are devoted to each department of cookery, beginning with soups, and running through the various kinds of sweets, pickles, etc. Each is introduced by a handsome vignette and appropriate motto, with a title at the top of every page. The paper is excellent and distinctly ruled. I wish I could put a copy into the hands of every housekeeper who believes in system of details, and development of her individual capabilities. It has so far simplified and lightened the task of preparing “Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea” for my public, that I cannot withhold this recommendation of it to others.
Yet if “General Receipts” was written con amore, its successor has been, in a still higher degree, a work of love and delight. There were times during the preparation of the trial volume when I could not feel quite sure of my audience. There has not been a moment, since I began that which I now offer for your acceptance, in the which I have not been conscious of your full sympathy; have not tasted, in anticipation, your enjoyment of that which I have taken such pleasure in making ready.
Do not think me sentimental when I ask that the Maltese cross, marking, as in the former work, such receipts as I have tested and proved for myself to be reliable, may be to you, dear friend and sister, like the footprint of a fellow-traveler along the humble but honorable pathway of every-day and practical life, bringing comfort and encouragement, even in the “heated term.”