"Please, ma'am, let me think," said Mary. "When we fried the pancakes, we put a little fat in the frying-pan, and let it melt, and then put in the batter. So I suppose we should do the same with fritters."
"That is exactly what we must not do," said Mrs. Herbert. "There are a few things which we must fry in a shallow pan, with very little fat. Pancakes and omelettes are amongst them. But as a rule, this is a very extravagant, wasteful mode of cooking. It is much better to fry properly, that is, to cook in an abundance of fat, using as much fat as will cover the food entirely, so that we may be said to boil the food, but in fat instead of water."
"I should have thought it was very wasteful to use a quantity of fat," said Margaret.
"Do you remember how much fat we used when we fried the pancakes?" said Mrs. Herbert.
"I remember," said Mary: "for every pancake we used a piece of fat about the size of a walnut."
"And how much of this was left when all were finished?"
"Why, none, mother," said Margaret. "The fat was used each time, and it seemed to dry up or go into the pancake, or something. At any rate, it was lost altogether."
"Then if we were trying to find out how much the pancakes cost, we ought to include the cost of the fat in which they were fried?"
"I suppose so."
"Do you not think, then, that if in frying we could so arrange matters that the fat should be used again and again and again, that would be less wasteful?"