Good Cooking : Part 6

American Woman's Home
by Catharine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe

(Page 19 of 46)

There is no animal fiber that will not yield itself up to long- continued, steady heat. But the difficulty with almost any of the common servants who call themselves cooks is, that they have not the smallest notion of the philosophy of the application of heat. Such a one will complacently tell you concerning certain meats, that the harder you boil them the harder they grow - an obvious fact which, under her mode of treatment by an indiscriminate galloping boil, has frequently come under her personal observation. If you tell her that such meat must stand for six hours in a heat just below the boiling point, she will probably answer, "Yes, ma'am," and go on her own way. Or she will let it stand till it burns to the bottom of the kettle - a most common termination of the experiment.

The only way to make sure of the matter is, either to obtain a French kettle, or to fit into an ordinary kettle a false bottom, such as any tinman may make, that should leave a space of an inch or two between the meat and the fire. This kettle may be maintained in a constant position on the range and into it the cook maybe instructed to throw all the fibrous trimmings of meat, all the gristle, tendons and bones, having previously broken up these last with a mallet. Such a kettle, the regular occupant of a French cooking-stove, which they call the pot au feu, will furnish the basis for clear, rich soups, or other palatable dishes. This is ordinarily called "stock."

Clear soup consists of the dissolved juices of the meat and gelatin of the bones, cleared from the fat and fibrous portions by straining. The grease, which rises to the top of the fluid, may be easily removed when cold.

English and American soups are often heavy and hot with spices. There are appreciable tastes in them. They burn your mouth with cayenne, or clove, or allspice. You can tell at once what is in them, oftentimes to your sorrow. But a French soup has a flavor which one recognizes at once as delicious, yet not to be characterized as due to any single condiment; it is the just blending of many things. The same remark applies to all their stews; ragouts and other delicate preparations. No cook will ever study these flavors; but perhaps many cooks' mistresses may and therefore, be able to impart delicacy and comfort to economy.

As to those things called hashes, commonly manufactured by unwatched, untaught cooks out of the remains of yesterday's meal, let us not dwell too closely on their memory - compounds of meat, gristle, skin, fat and burnt fiber, with a handful of pepper and salt flung at them, dredged with lumpy flour, watered from the spout of the tea-kettle and left to simmer at the cook's convenience while she is otherwise occupied. Such are the best performances a housekeeper can hope for from an untrained cook.

But the cunningly devised minces, the artful preparations choicely flavored, which may be made of yesterday's repast - by these is the true domestic artist known. No cook untaught by an educated brain ever makes these and yet economy is a great gainer by them.

As regards the department of Vegetables, their number and variety in America are so great that a table might almost be furnished by these alone. Generally speaking, their cooking is a more simple art and therefore more likely to be found satisfactorily performed, than that of meats. If only they are not drenched with rancid butter, their own native excellence makes itself known in most of the ordinary modes of preparation.

There is, however, one exception. Our staunch old friend, the potato, is to other vegetables what bread is on the table. Like bread, it is held as a sort of sine-qua-non; like that, it may be made invariably palatable by a little care in a few plain particulars, through neglect of which it often becomes intolerable. The soggy, waxy, indigestible viand that often appears in the potato-dish is a downright sacrifice of the better nature of this vegetable.

The potato, nutritive and harmless as it appears, belongs to a family suspected of very dangerous traits. It is a family connection of the deadly-nightshade and other ill-reputed gentry and sometimes shows strange proclivities to evil - now breaking out uproariously, as in the noted potato-rot and now more covertly, in various evil affections. For this reason scientific directors bid us beware of the water in which potatoes are boiled-into which, it appears, the evil principle is drawn off; and they caution us not to shred them into stews without previously suffering the slices to lie for an hour or so in salt and water. These cautions are worth attention.

The most usual modes of preparing the potato for the table are by roasting or boiling. These processes are so simple that it is commonly supposed every cook understands them without special directions; and yet there is scarcely an uninstructed cook who can boil or roast a potato.

A good roasted potato is a delicacy worth a dozen compositions of the cook-book; yet when we ask for it, what burnt, shriveled abortions are presented to us! Biddy rushes to her potato-basket and pours out two dozen of different sizes, some having in them three times the amount of matter of others. These being washed, she tumbles them into her oven at a leisure interval and there lets them lie till it is time to serve breakfast, whenever that may be. As a result, if the largest are cooked, the smallest are presented in cinders and the intermediate sizes are withered and watery. Nothing is so utterly ruined by a few moments of overdoing. That which at the right moment was plump with mealy richness, a quarter of an hour later shrivels and becomes watery - and it is in this state that roast potatoes are most frequently served.

In the same manner we have seen boiled potatoes from an untaught cook coming upon the table like lumps of yellow wax - and the same article, under the directions of a skillful mistress, appearing in snowy balls of powdery whiteness. In the one case, they were thrown in their skins into water and suffered to soak or boil, as the case might be, at the cook's leisure and after they were boiled to stand in the water till she was ready to peel them. In the other case, the potatoes being first peeled were boiled as quickly as possible in salted water, which the moment they were done was drained off and then they were gently shaken for a moment or two over the fire to dry them still more thoroughly. We have never yet seen the potato so depraved and given over to evil that it could not be reclaimed by this mode of treatment.

About the Author

Catharine Esther Beecher (1800 - 1878) was a noted educator, renowned for her forthright opinions on women's education as well as her vehement support of the many benefits of the incorporation of a kindergarten into children's education.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 - 1896) was a white American abolitionist and novelist, whose Uncle Tom's Cabin attacked the cruelty of slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential, even in Britain.