We did not intend to make a book, such as that of CARÈME, which cannot be used at all except by cooks of very wealthy families, and with which one cannot make a dinner costing less than twenty dollars a head. Such a book is to housekeepers or plain cooks what a Latin dictionary is to a person of merely elementary education.
If we give so many different ways of preparing the same article of food, it is not with a view to complicate cookery, but people's taste is in food as in dress, differing not only in the selection of colors, but also in shape; therefore, by our variety of dishes and our different styles of decorating them; by the ease that they can be prepared in the cheapest as well as in the most costly way, we think we have met all wants and all tastes. The wealthy, as well as those in limited circumstances, can use our receipts with the same advantage.
Our division of cookery and the system of arranging bills of fare, contained in these pages, solve that great and perplexing question, especially for ladies, how to arrange a bill of fare for every season, to suit any number of guests, at a greater or less expense, as they may desire. Every one knows that money alone cannot make good dishes; however good the raw materials may be, they require proper preparations before being palatable and wholesome.
TO HOUSEKEEPERS AND COOKS.
A cook-book cannot be used like a dictionary; a receipt is like a rule of grammar: to comprehend it thoroughly, it is indispensable to understand others. The author, therefore, earnestly recommends to his readers to begin by perusing carefully the directions, etc., at the beginning of the book, and also the explanations given on and heading the different articles of food, before attempting the preparation of a dish for the first time. They will thus soon be able to prepare any dish by merely reading the receipt. If all the explanations necessary were given at every receipt, this work would have filled more than ten volumes like the present.
We are aware that the study of cookery is as uninviting and dry as the study of grammar at first; so is the study of every science and even art; but it becomes comparatively easy and interesting after a while. Mere flourish in a receipt would have the same effect as in a rule of grammar.
TO COOKS.
We think the following friendly recommendations will not be out of place here. They are in the interest of both the housekeeper and the cook:
Make use of every thing good.