Common-sense cookery for English households : with twenty menus worked out in detail / by Colonel A. Kenney-Herbert ("Wyvern").

  • Kenney-Herbert, A. R. (Arthur Robert), 1840-1916.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Common-sense cookery for English households : with twenty menus worked out in detail / by Colonel A. Kenney-Herbert ("Wyvern"). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

    12/564 (page 2)
    never be heard. It is of little use to condemn a bad dish if you cannot point out the why and the wherefore ; or to say that such and such a thing is wrong unless you are able to explain clearly how it can be rightly done in future. In making these remarks I do not appeal to those who are able to leave the direction of their household affairs to a housekeeper, and are willing to submit themselves to the style of food unto which it may please that expert to call them. I address those who are really interested in the sub- ject, who are prepared to take the reins themselves, and earnestly desire to improve their cuisine. The domestic cook is, we must all remember, a mere accident. She may of course have been brought up in a good kitchen, and have acquired a sound knowledge of her business, but in the majority of cases the less said of her early training, and the sooner it is improved away, the better. In these circumstances some one must instruct her, and surely it is the mistress who should do this. If approached with patience, tact, and in a pleasant manner, teaching can be conducted more easily and quickly than many believe. But it goes without saying that the teacher must be up in her subject. How can she acquire the necessary knowledge ? I answer without hesitation—by self-instruction, provided that a really practical little cook’s guide be chosen in which the grammar of cooking with its leading principles and standard laws is simply and clearly expounded. The recipes neither too numerous nor on too large a scale, and weights and measures very carefully given. With a treatise of this description any ordinarily intelligent student can gradually work up the subject, putting many things to practical test, and learning the hard and fast rules that never change. It is my earnest endeavour to construct my book on these lines. When thus grounded, acquainted with kitchen appliances and their uses, and familiar with culinary phraseology, there can be no doubt that many a valuable wrinkle can be picked up by attending lectures at a good school of cookery, but I deny that sound general knowledge can be acquired by such means alone.