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Early American Cookery: "The Good Housekeeper," 1841
Early American Cookery: "The Good Housekeeper," 1841
Early American Cookery: "The Good Housekeeper," 1841
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Early American Cookery: "The Good Housekeeper," 1841

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Engagingly written volume not only provided the mid-19th-century housekeeper with recipes for scores of nutritious dishes but also offered wide-ranging suggestions for frugal and intelligent household management. Includes advice on selecting and preparing foods, health tips, cleaning domestic accessories, dealing with hired help, and much more.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 30, 2012
ISBN9780486136936
Early American Cookery: "The Good Housekeeper," 1841

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    Early American Cookery - Sarah Josepha Hale

    LIFE.

    CHAPTER I.

    INTRODUCTORY.

    Bodily health, satisfied appetite, and peace of mind, are great promoters of individual morality and public tranquillity.—DR. COMBE.

    THE main object of those who have prepared works on cookery, has been to teach the art of good living, or of cheap living;—the Cook’s Oracle is one of the best examples for the first purpose, the Frugal Housewife of the last.

    My aim is to select and combine the excellences of these two systems, at the same time keeping in view the important object of preserving health, and thus teach how to live well, and to be well while we live.

    The physiology of digestion and the principles of dietetics, as laid down and explained by Dr. Andrew Combe, of Edinburgh, form the basis of my plan, which will inculcate temperance in all things, but rarely enforce total abstinence from any thing which the Creator has sanctioned, as proper food for mankind.

    I follow chiefly in the system of Dr. Combe, because, though I have examined many popular works on Diet, Health, &c. and have found much to commend, and some things to adopt from these writers, yet he defines, with most clearness and precision, those rules of living, which my own experience has taught me are good and judicious. Indeed, in most cases, even when I may quote the language of Dr. Combe, I still write what I know to be true.

    I have been a housekeeper, both in the country and the city, and have had a practical knowledge of those rules of domestic economy which I shall recommend. And I have brought up a family of children, without the loss, or hardly the sickness, of one of them during infancy and childhood. I can, therefore, claim some experience in a successful manner of managing the health and constitution of the young.

    As our bodily health, and, consequently, our happiness and usefulness in domestic and social life, depend very much on the proper quantity of food we eat, and the time and circumstances under which it is taken, I shall give a few hints on these subjects, before laying down rules for the preparation and quality of the food.

    TIMES OF TAKING FOOD.—Nature has fixed no particular hours for eating. When the mode of life is uniform, it is of great importance to adopt fixed hours ; when it is irregular, we ought to be guided by the real wants of the system as dictated by appetite.

    A strong laboring man, engaged in hard work, will require food oftener and in larger quantities than an indolent or sedentary man.

    As a general rule, about five hours should elapse between one meal and another—longer, if the mode of life be indolent; shorter, if it be very active.

    When dinner is delayed seven or eight hours after breakfast, some slight refreshment should be taken between.

    Young persons when growing fast, require more food and at shorter intervals, than those do who have attained maturity.

    Children under seven years of age, usually need food every three hours; a piece of bread will be a healthy lunch, and a child seldom eats bread to excess.

    During the first months of infancy, there can be no set times of giving nourishment. Different constitutions require different management. The best rule is to satisfy the real wants of the child, but never tempt it to take food to still its crying from pain when it is not hungry.

    Those persons who eat a late supper should not take breakfast till one or two hours after rising. Those who dine late, and eat nothing afterwards, require breakfast soon after rising.

    Persons of a delicate constitution should never exercise much before breakfast.

    If exposure of any kind is to be incurred in the morning, breakfast should always be taken previously. The system is more susceptible of infection and of the influence of cold, miasma, &c., in the morning before eating, than at any other time.

    Those who walk early will find great benefit from taking a cracker or some little nourishment before going out.

    Never go into a room of a morning, where a person is sick with a fever, before you have taken nourishment of some kind—a cup of coffee, at least.

    In setting out early to travel, a light breakfast before starting should always be taken; it is a great protection against cold, fatigue and exhaustion.

    In boarding schools for the young and growing, early breakfast is an indispensable condition to health. Children should not be kept without food in the morning till they are faint and weary.

    Never eat a hearty supper just before retiring to rest.

    It is injurious to eat when greatly heated or fatigued. It would very much conduce to the health of laboring men if they could rest fifteen or twenty minutes before dinner.

    PROPER QUANTITY OF FOOD.—As a general fact, those who can obtain sufficient food, eat much more than is required for their sustenance.

    Nearly one half of the diseases and deaths occurring during the first two years of existence, are owing to mismanagement and errors in diet.

    Children should never be fed or tempted to eat when appetite is satisfied; and grown persons should also be careful of eating beyond that point.

    The indigestion so much complained of, and which causes so many disorders and sufferings in the human system, is a wise provision of nature, to prevent the repletion which would otherwise ensue, when too much food is taken.

    The power of digestion is limited to the amount of gastric juice the stomach is capable of providing; exercise, in the open air, promotes the secretion of the gastric juice.

    It is a good and safe rule to proportion our meals to the amount of exercise we have taken; if that exercise has been in the open air, there is less danger of excess. The delicate lady, who scarcely walks abroad, should live very sparingly, or she will be troubled with nervousness, headache, and all the horrors of

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