Decoration is much more rationally employed in rendering a wholesome, nutritious dish inviting, than in the elaborate embellishments which are crowded about trifles and custards.
Endeavour to avoid over-dressing roasts and boils, &c. and over-seasoning soups and sauces with salt, pepper, &c.; it is a fault which cannot be mended.
If your roasts, &c. are a little under-done, with the assistance of the stewpan, the gridiron, or the Dutch oven, you may soon rectify the mistake made with the spit or the pot.
If over-done, the best juices of the meat are evaporated; it will serve merely to distend the stomach, and if the sensation of hunger be removed, it is at the price of an indigestion.
The chief business of cookery is to render food easy of digestion, and to facilitate nutrition. This is most completely accomplished by plain cookery in perfection; i. e. neither over nor under-done.
With all your care, you will not get much credit by cooking to perfection, if more than one dish goes to table at a time.
To be eaten in perfection, the interval between meat being taken out of the stewpan and its being put into the mouth, must be as short as possible; but ceremony, that most formidable enemy to good cheer, too often decrees it otherwise, and the guests seldom get a bit of an “entremets” till it is half cold. (See [No. 485].)
So much time is often lost in placing every thing in apple-pie order, that long before dinner is announced, all becomes lukewarm; and to complete the mortification of the grand gourmand, his meat is put on a sheet of ice in the shape of a plate, which instantly converts the gravy into jelly, and the fat into a something which puzzles his teeth and the roof of his mouth as much as if he had birdlime to masticate. A complete meat-screen will answer the purpose of a hot closet, plate-warmer, &c.—See [Index].
It will save you infinite trouble and anxiety, if you can prevail on your employers to use the “SAUCE-BOX,” [No. 462], hereinafter described in the [chapter] of Sauces. With the help of this “MAGAZINE OF TASTE,” every one in company may flavour their soup and sauce, and adjust the vibrations of their palate, exactly to their own fancy; but if the cook give a decidedly predominant and piquante goût to a dish, to tickle the tongues of two or three visiters, whose taste she knows, she may thereby make the dinner disgusting to all the other guests.
Never undertake more work than you are quite certain you can do well. If you are ordered to prepare a larger dinner than you think you can send up with ease and neatness, or to dress any dish that you are not acquainted with, rather than run any risk in spoiling any thing (by one fault you may perhaps lose all your credit), request your employers to let you have some help. They may acquit you for pleading guilty of inability; but if you make an attempt, and fail, will vote it a capital offence.