The whole of this Work has, a seventh time, been carefully revised; but this last time I have found little to add, and little to alter.
I have bestowed as much attention on each of the 500 receipts as if the whole merit of the book was to be estimated entirely by the accuracy of my detail of one particular process.
The increasing demand for “The Cook’s Oracle,” amounting in 1824 to the extraordinary number of upwards of 45,000, has been stimulus enough to excite any man to submit to the most unremitting study; and the Editor has felt it as an imperative duty to exert himself to the utmost to render “The Cook’s Oracle” a faithful narrative of all that is known of the various subjects it professes to treat.
PREFACE.
Among the multitudes of causes which concur to impair health and produce disease, the most general is the improper quality of our food: this most frequently arises from the injudicious manner in which it is prepared: yet strange, “passing strange,” this is the only one for which a remedy has not been sought; few persons bestow half so much attention on the preservation of their own health, as they daily devote to that of their dogs and horses.
The observations of the Guardians of Health respecting regimen, &c. have formed no more than a catalogue of those articles of food, which they have considered most proper for particular constitutions.