Part I: Important Instructions

Preface To The American Edition

You must permit me to offer a word of explanation and of apology in inviting your attention to this pamphlet. It is based upon the supposition of no school and no traditions of good cooking. Now these...

Chapter I. Painted Dishes

I have seen the mahoganies of many men (Thackeray, Mr. Brown's Letters to his Nephew). On what Indian cooks call painted dishes, and on cooks running opposition shops to decorative artists-D...

Chapter II. No Meats To Be Fried

-All sauces, except the natural gravy, to be served separately-Grilling on charcoal-Eschew gas stoves for cooking of meats, and do not bake your joints. My first three points are-firstly, no meats ...

Chapter III. On Seasoning In The Kitchen

Patent sauces not real cookery-Soups and vegetables not to be peppered in the kitchen-Pure wine only, no cooking wine-(hilling preferable to frying for fish and fowl, as well as for meat-Caution as...

Chapter IV. On Bills Of Fare And Their Composition

Do not expect your cook, unless more than usually intelligent, to compose the bills of fare for your daily dinner, or for a party, but do it yourself until, at least, you have properly trained your co...

Chapter V. Bills Of Fare, Best Materials

Best materials only to be used, including butter and everything that enters your kitchen. Whetheb your dinner be for yourself alone or for a party, choose your dishes with an eye to their lightness...

Chapter VI. Simplicity

Simplicity, and again simplicity-On the folly of trying to produce dinners on the same lines as the banquets of the rich, who employ first-class French cooks-An excellent dinner quite possible in any ...

Chapter VII. On Entries

The messy entree-The too rich entree- The flabby entree, and why always mashed potatoes as a basis for the flabby ? Of course you require a fuller bill of fare for a regular dinner party, wit...

Chapter VIII. Good Entries

Good entries or none at all-Sauces to be served separately. You will readily conclude from the foregoing remarks that your entrees, simple though they be, must be more toothsome than the vapid dish...

Chapter IX. On The Importance Of Taking An Interest In Cookery

Of being on good terms with your cook, and of judicious criticism and praise-On studying the literature of cookery. I hope you have now arrived at the conclusion that you ought not to be above taki...

Chapter X. On The Mistake Of Employing A French Chef

On the mistake of employing a French chef if you are not a good judge of cookery-On the well-trained Mary Jane. It is not a wise plan for you to engage a superior class of cook, unless you be a goo...

Chapter XI. On The Decoration Of The Table

Again simplicity-No strong-scented flowers - No greenery-yallery stuffs-Lighting of the table and shades-No fads or frills-Electric light-Fruit-On menus, and why always French menus, even for the ...

Part II: Different Menus

Menus

You who have done me the kindness to follow me thus far, do not, please, expect a complete treatise on the art of cooking, or a list of recipes, such as the professed cook is in the habit of referring...

Breakfast Menus

Bread As a rule, is not for the dyspeptic. All but the crust of our home-made bread may fairly be called indigestible. If you do not eat biscuits, try properly made toast. I do not mean the ordinar...

Dinner Menus

Soups Diner-out that you are of many years' standing, will you tell me how often you have come across a good plain clear soup, tasting of the meat and vegetables, and not of diluted glue. wine, spi...

How To Cook Shellfish

That excellent gourmet, Commodore McVickar, of New York, U.S.A., teaches us how to cook a lobster:- If you have ever tasted a lobster* boiled in * I find the same applies to a crab. my way you ...

How To Cook Fish

Frying being tabooed, you will readily discover other and excellent ways of preparing fish. Grilled, baked, or au gratin, or roasted as suggested by Sir Henry Thompson, or, if simply boiled, then serv...

How To Cook Meat

In roasting as well as in grilling it is essential that the meat be exposed to a very fierce fire to begin with, in order to set the albumen which then forms a coat in which the juices remain unimpair...

How To Cook Game

Roasting, whether of meat or of game, is so thoroughly well understood in this country that I need only say-roast, don't bake. But the roasting of wild duck is, to my mind, more carefully done in Amer...

How To Make Entrees

I have spoken of meat before touching on entrees. These precede the former at the dinner-table, but they are not so important a subject; besides the suggestions already made, there is little left to d...

How To Cook Vegetables

None to be peppered in the kitchen except tomatoes, mushrooms, etc. Potatoes Always prefer the mealy to the waxy tuber. If you like them very mealy, put them into cold water, boil up quickly...

How To Make Sauces

Of Sauces I will endeavour to say as little as possible, since we do not attempt the grande cuisine or cuisine classique, the sauces of which, as Mr. Theodore Child very justly observes, are beyond yo...

How To Make Sauces. Continued

Sauce Diplomate Pour into a casserole a quantity (about a pint) of good bichamel sauce (white stock), embody with it gradually, and always stirring, just as you do with the Hollandaise sauce, about...

How To Make Sweets

Caramel One of the best and most nourishing is a rich custard, steamed in a mould lined with caramel (burnt sugar), and flavoured with vanilla pod-not the essence. Serve with a cream and egg sau...

How To Make Ices

I strongly recommend you to make your own. A freezer only costs l1s. 6d., and it will soon pay for itself. You will thus have better flavoured ices, and you will be sure not to be poisoned. None of...

Patient's Bill Of Fare. Breakfast

Bread, home-made. „ French. „ wholemeal, brown. Biscuits, Captain's. „ Oliver (Bath). Unleavened. „ Oatmeal. (Should be more or less stale.) (Toast prepared as on p. 44.) Tea, prepared as ...

Luncheon For Patients

Extra dishes besides those on the dinner and breakfast list:- Beef-tea or chicken broth. „ „ cold (in jelly). With or without pieces of breast of fowl. Sweets. Savoury. Cheese. Fresh fruit...

Dinner For Patients

No hors-d'oeuvres, except perhaps salt sardines or the very best Russian caviar in jars (not in tins), or shrimps (no prawns). Oysters, the very best only. Soups, preferably clear soup. No soups...