"[1]
[Footnote 1: _Examiner_.]
In short, we want common sense in cookery, as in most other things. Food
should be used, and not abused. Much of it is now absolutely wasted,
wasted for want of a little art in cooking it. Food is not only wasted
by bad cooking; but much of it is thrown away which French women would
convert into something savoury and digestible. Health, morals, and
family enjoyments, are all connected with the question of cookery. Above
all, it is the handmaid of Thrift. It makes the most and the best of the
bounties of God. It wastes nothing, but turns everything to account.
Every Englishwoman, whether gentle or simple, ought to be accomplished
in an art which confers so much comfort, health, and wealth upon the
members of her household.
"It appears to me," said Mrs. Margaretta Grey, "that with an increase of
wealth unequally distributed, and a pressure of population, there has
sprung up amongst us a spurious refinement, that cramps the energy and
circumscribes the usefulness of women in the upper class of society. A
lady, to be such, must be a lady, and nothing else.... Ladies dismissed
from the dairy, the confectionery, the store-room, the still-room, the
poultry-yard, the kitchen-garden, and the orchard" [she might have
added, the spinning-wheel], "have hardly yet found for themselves a
sphere equally useful and important in the pursuits of trade and art, to
which to apply their too abundant leisure.
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