The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual Part 7

"Let your _character_ be remarkable for industry and moderation; your _manners_ and deportment, for modesty and humility; your _dress_ distinguished for simplicity, frugality, and neatness. A dressy servant is a disgrace to a house, and renders her employers as ridiculous as she does herself. If you outs.h.i.+ne your companions in finery, you will inevitably excite their envy, and make them your enemies."

"Do every thing at the proper time."

"Keep every thing in its proper place."

"Use every thing for its proper purpose."

The importance of these three rules must be evident, to all who will consider how much easier it is to return any thing when done with to its proper place, than it is to find it when mislaid; and it is as easy to put things in one place as in another.

Keep your kitchen and furniture as clean and neat as possible, which will then be an ornament to it, a comfort to your fellow-servants, and a credit to yourself. Moreover, good housewifery is the best recommendation to a good husband, and engages men to honourable attachment to you; she who is a tidy servant gives promise of being a careful wife.

_Giving away Victuals._

Giving away any thing without consent or privity of your master or mistress, is a liberty you must not take; charity and compa.s.sion for the wants of our fellow-creatures are very amiable virtues, but they are not to be indulged at the expense of your own honesty, and other people's property.

When you find that there is any thing to spare, and that it is in danger of being spoiled by being kept too long, it is very commendable in you to ask leave to dispose of it while it is fit for Christians to eat: if such permission is refused, the sin does not lie at your door. But you must on no account bestow the least morsel in contradiction to the will of those to whom it belongs.

"Never think any part of your business too trifling to be well done."

"Eagerly embrace every opportunity of learning any thing which may be useful to yourself, or of doing any thing which may benefit others."

Do not throw yourself out of a good place for a slight affront. "Come when you are called, and do what you are bid." Place yourself in your mistress's situation, and consider what you would expect from her, if she were in yours; and serve, reverence, and obey her accordingly.

Although there may be "more places than parish-churches," it is not very easy to find many more good ones.

"A rolling stone never gathers moss."

"Honesty is the best policy."

"A still tongue makes a wise head."

_Saucy answers_ are highly aggravating, and answer no good purpose.

Let your master or mistress scold ever so much, or be ever so unreasonable; as "a soft answer turneth away wrath," "so will SILENCE be _the best a servant can make_".

_One rude answer_, extorted perhaps by harsh words, or unmerited censure, has cost many a servant the loss of a good place, or the total forfeiture of a regard which had been growing for years.

"If your employers are hasty, and have scolded without reason, bear it patiently; they will soon see their error, and not be happy till they make you amends. Muttering on leaving the room, or slamming the door after you, is as bad as an impertinent reply; it is, in fact, showing that you would be impertinent if you dared."

"A faithful servant will not only never speak disrespectfully _to_ her employers, but will not hear disrespectful words said _of_ them."

Apply direct to your employers, and beg of them to explain to you, as fully as possible, how they like their victuals dressed, whether much or little done.[50-*]

Of what complexion they wish the ROASTS, of a gold colour, or well browned, and if they like them frothed?

Do they like SOUPS and SAUCES thick or thin, or white or brown, clean or full in the mouth? What accompaniments they are partial to?

What flavours they fancy? especially of SPICE and HERBS:

"Namque coquus domini debet habere gulam."--MARTIAL.

It is impossible that the most accomplished cook can please their palates, till she has learned their particular taste: this, it will hardly be expected, she can hit exactly the first time; however, the hints we have here given, and in the 7th and 8th chapters of the Rudiments of Cookery, will very much facilitate the ascertainment of this main chance of getting into their favour.

Be extremely cautious of seasoning high: leave it to the eaters to add the piquante condiments, according to their own palate and fancy: for this purpose, "THE MAGAZINE OF TASTE," or "_Sauce-box_," (No. 462,) will be found an invaluable acquisition; its contents will instantaneously produce any flavour that may be desired.

"De gustibus non est disputandum."

Tastes are as different as faces; and without a most attentive observation of the directions given by her employers, the most experienced cook will never be esteemed a profound palatician.

It will not go far to pacify the rage of a ravenous _gourmand_, who likes his chops broiled brown, (and done enough, so that they can appear at table decently, and not blush when they are cut,) to be told that some of the customers at Dolly's chop-house choose to have them only half-done, and that this is the best way of eating them.

We all think that is the best way which we relish best, and which agrees best with our stomach: in this, reason and fas.h.i.+on, all-powerful as they are on most occasions, yield to the imperative caprice of the palate.

_Chacun a son gout._

"THE IRISHMAN loves _Usquebaugh_, the SCOT loves ale call'd _Blue-cap_, The WELCHMAN he loves _toasted cheese_, and makes his mouth like a mouse-trap."

Our ITALIAN neighbours regale themselves with _macaroni_ and _parmesan_, and eat some things which we call _carrion_.--Vide RAY'S _Travels_, p.

362 and 406.

While the ENGLISHMAN boasts of his _roast beef, plum pudding, and porter_,

The FRENCHMAN feeds on his favourite _frog and soupe-maigre_,

The TARTAR feasts on _horse-flesh_,

The CHINAMAN on _dogs_,

The GREENLANDER preys on _garbage_ and _train oil_; and each "blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury." What at one time or place is considered as beautiful, fragrant, and savoury, at another is regarded as deformed and disgustful.[51-*]

"Ask _a toad_ what is beauty, the supremely beautiful, the ?? ?????!

He will tell you it is _my wife_,--with two large eyes projecting out of her little head, a broad and flat neck, yellow belly, and dark brown back. With _a Guinea negro_, it is a greasy black skin, hollow eyes, and a flat nose. Put the question to the _devil_, and he will tell you that BEAUTY is a pair of horns, four claws, and a tail."--VOLTAIRE'S _Philos.

Dict._ 8vo. p. 32.

"_Asaftida_ was called by the ancients 'FOOD FOR THE G.o.dS.' The Persians, Indians, and other Eastern people, now eat it in sauces, and call it by that name: the Germans call it _devil's dung_."--_Vide_ POMET _on Drugs_.

Garlic and clove, or allspice, combined in certain proportions, produce a flavour very similar to asaftida.

The organ of taste is more rarely found in perfection, and is sooner spoiled by the operations of time, excessive use, &c. than either of our other senses.

There are as various degrees of sensibility of palate as there are of gradations of perfection in the eyes and ears of painters and musicians.

After all the pains which the editor has taken to explain the harmony of subtle relishes, unless nature has given the organ of taste in a due degree, this book will, alas! no more make an OSBORNE,[52-*] than it can a REYNOLDS, or an ARNE, or a s.h.i.+ELD.

Where nature has been most bountiful of this faculty, its sensibility is so easily blunted by a variety of unavoidable circ.u.mstances, that the tongue is very seldom in the highest condition for appreciating delicate flavours, or accurately estimating the relative force of the various materials the cook employs in the composition of an harmonious relish.

Cooks express this refinement of combination by saying, a well-finished _ragout_ "tastes of every thing, and tastes of nothing:" (this is "_kitchen gibberish_" for a sauce in which the component parts are well proportioned.)

However delicately sensitive nature may have formed the organs of taste, it is only during those few happy moments that they are perfectly awake, and in perfect good humour, (alas! how very seldom they are,) that the most accomplished and experienced cook has a chance of working with any degree of certainty without the auxiliary tests of the balance and the measure: by the help of these, when you are once right, it is your own fault if you are ever otherwise.

The sense of taste depends much on the health of the individual, and is hardly ever for a single hour in the same state: such is the extremely intimate sympathy between the stomach and the tongue, that in proportion as the former is empty, the latter is acute and sensitive. This is the cause that "good appet.i.te is the best sauce," and that the dish we find savoury at _luncheon_, is insipid at _dinner_, and at _supper_ quite tasteless.

To taste any thing in perfection, the tongue must be moistened, or the substance applied to it contain moisture; the nervous papillae which const.i.tute this sense are roused to still more lively sensibility by salt, sugar, aromatics, &c.