BY AUNT MARJORIE PRECEPT.
A fine art, like painting, music, embroidery or sculpture? Yes, my dears, and an art which involves as much industry, skill, and taste as any of the others. Good cooking is an important element in home life and happiness. Health depends upon it, for nobody can be well and strong who suffers from indigestion, and nothing causes indigestion sooner than ill-cooked food.
Many people think that while a girl must go to school for years to acquire a knowledge of her own and foreign languages, and must have masters for this and that accomplishment, she may be safely left to pick up an acquaintance with cooking after she has a household of her own. This is a great mistake, as hundreds of ladies who remember the trouble they have had through want of experience can tell you. I myself once had a dreadful time trying to prepare a dinner, in the absence of my faithful Bridget, and I would have given up Latin, Greek, and French that day to have known when the potatoes were done, and to have discovered how to get the pease and beans out of the water in which they were floating.
To be a good cook, girls, one needs a light, firm hand, an accurate eye, and a patient temper. One needs, too, a few rules and a trustworthy receipt-book. We have all seen the easy way in which a good cook makes a cake. She tosses three or four things together, gives a flirt of the spice box, and a feathery touch or two to her foamy eggs, pops the pan into the oven, and presto! there appears the perfect loaf. And if you ask her why and how she did this or the other part of her work, she will very likely smile and say, "Oh, I used my judgment."
This judgment is the quality which no novice in cooking can expect to possess, just as no novice on the piano can perform the "Moonlight Sonata" after learning two or three scales, and no beginner with the pencil can paint such sea-pieces as those of De Haas.
But if you are watchful and persevering, the judgment will surely come, and by-and-by you will be as independent as a dear old colored aunty who once cooked for me. One day when I had asked some friends, and wanted a very nice dinner indeed, I asked Aunt Hannah how she intended to prepare the turkey. She raised herself to her full height, and looking like a queen, said, "Now, honey, you jest go 'long and sit by de fire. It's my business to cook de dinner, an' it'll be yours to eat it, chile."
Have your receipt-books, at least until you know certain rules by heart, and minutely follow their directions. Still, as no receipt-book can tell you just when bread is light or precisely when meat is done, you must watch whatever you are cooking very carefully, and you will gradually acquire a sort of sense which will not fail you.
One of the things you must learn if you wish to cook successfully is the management of your fire. A range is a splendid servant if under proper control; but unless you understand dampers and draughts, you will probably have no end of trouble with your ovens. The skillful cook keeps her fire raked clear of ashes from beneath. She never heaps coals up so high that they over-brim the fire-chamber and rattle against the lids, and she does not let her heat go up the chimney when it ought to be baking her biscuits.