NEWSPAPER COOKERY.
In a late number of a popular periodical, Mrs. Amelia E. Barr, while telling of her childhood a half-century ago, incidentally remarks: "I should have as soon thought of smoking my father's pipe as of reading his newspaper. There were no papers at all for women and children, if I except the Court Journal for women of rank."
Just when cookery and household affairs became a part of the newspaper's province, I do not know, nor is it my purpose to give its history. My earliest recollection of anything in this line is connected with Hearth and Home, an illustrated paper, the forerunner of the many household periodicals of to-day. A leading feature was "Mrs. Hunnibee's Diary," furnished by Mrs. Lyman, afterward on the staff of the New York Tribune. Her work was a worthy model for us to follow. Let us look at the work as it is, and as it ought to be.
Count Rumford—one of the pioneers in the study of foods—has said: "The number of inhabitants who may be supported in any country upon its internal produce depends about as much upon the state of the art of cookery as upon that of agriculture—these are the arts of civilized nations; savages understand neither of them." Naturally, therefore, the agricultural papers were the first to give space to cookery, and have ever been generous in that way.
Newspaper cookery is not an inappropriate phrase, since too often the "Home Column" in half our papers is simply a rehash of what has appeared in the other papers of the country. The results of warming over in the kitchen are very diverse, and they are equally so in newspaper cookery; a rechauffé may be very sloppy or very dry, and give no hint of its original components, when it should be a savory combination, the ingredients of which have suffered no loss of flavor.
This does not include the class of articles which are made by careful study of books of reference and form a new setting for fragmentary information, such as is often lost if not rearranged; but what can be said in favor of the sort of work where a standard recipe forms the basis for a wishy-washy story?
Another variety of newspaper cookery to be avoided is the reporting of demonstration lectures by those who know nothing of the subject and have no conception of the lecturer's methods, or by those having a superficial knowledge who attempt to interlard their own opinions throughout the report.
Reporters having little or no knowledge of the literature of the kitchen are apt to make rash claims for their favorite lecturers or for themselves. In a recent paper an evident neophyte—in cookery at least—claims to set right in a new and original way the curdling of a mayonnaise dressing. She claims that none of the directions given in the cook-books tell what should be done if it goes wrong, yet in at least two standard works the whole thing is fully explained.
There are undoubtedly many recipes which belong to the whole world, and have been in use for generations, yet some teachers may claim original methods of combining these ingredients. Has a reporter any right to make such ideas appear as her own, without due credit to the authors? Whether this sort of work is done in newspapers, or appears in book form, or whether it is in direct violation of copyright laws or not, it is at least discourteous. Poems are sometimes stolen, but the literature of the kitchen oftener suffers.
In these days of specialties, when one man devotes himself to politics, another to finance, or music, or art, it would not seem that a woman, because she is a woman, is therefore fitted to care for the household department of a paper; yet this is usually the first work given into her hands. Probably there are many teachers of cookery who could not write a catchy newspaper article, but it may be questioned whether such writing is desirable upon this subject.