All the skill of the most accomplished cook will avail nothing, unless she is furnished with PRIME PROVISIONS. The best way to procure these is to deal with shops of established character: you may appear to pay, perhaps, ten per cent. more than you would, were you to deal with those who pretend to sell cheap, but you would be much more than in that proportion better served.
Every trade has its tricks and deceptions: those who follow them can deceive you if they please; and they are too apt to do so, if you provoke the exercise of their over-reaching talent.[61-*]
Challenge them to a game at “Catch who can,” by entirely relying on your own judgment; and you will soon find that nothing but very long experience can make you equal to the combat of marketing to the utmost advantage.
Before you go to market, look over your larder, and consider well what things are wanting, especially on a Saturday. No well-regulated family can suffer a disorderly caterer to be jumping in and out to the chandler’s shop on a Sunday morning.
Give your directions to your assistants, and begin your business early in the morning, or it will be impossible to have the dinner ready at the time it is ordered.
To be half an hour after the time is such a frequent fault, that there is the more merit in being ready at the appointed hour. This is a difficult task, and in the best-regulated family you can only be sure of your time by proper arrangements.
With all our love of punctuality, we must not forget that the first consideration must still be, that the dinner “be well done when ’t is done.”
If any accident occurs to any part of the dinner, or if you are likely to be prevented sending the soup, &c. to the table at the moment it is expected, send up a message to your employers, stating the circumstance, and bespeak their patience for as many minutes as you think it will take to be ready. This is better than either keeping the company waiting without an apology, or dishing your dinner before it is done enough, or sending any thing to table which is disgusting to the stomachs of the guests at the first appearance of it.
Those who desire regularity in the service of their table, should have a DIAL, of about twelve inches diameter, placed over the kitchen fireplace, carefully regulated to keep time exactly with the clock in the hall or dining-parlour; with a frame on one side, containing A TASTE TABLE of the peculiarities of the master’s palate, and the particular rules and orders of his kitchen; and, on the other side, of the REWARDS given to those who attend to them, and for long and faithful service.
In small families, where a dinner is seldom given, a great deal of preparation is required, and the preceding day must be devoted to the business of the kitchen.