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ALBERT R. MANN LIBRARY Cornell University Gift of Thomas Bass From Home Bakings, by Edna Evans San Francisco, 1912. nS'illlflifciiiiiil.'y^''*'''^ LIBHAHV 3 1924 086 7{2""o84 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924086712084 THE Complete Cook Book MRS. JENNIE DAY REES PHILADELPHIA DAVID McKAY, PUBLISHER 604-8 South Washington Square Copyrighted, 1900 By STREET & SMITH The Complete Cook Book All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign lahguageSi including the Scandinavian. THE COMPLETE COOK BOOK. Cookery is eminently an experimental and a practi- cal art. Each day, while it adds to our experience, increases also our knowledge; and as we have come long after the Greeks and Romans, and have had the benefit of their experience, it is no marvel that we should have greatly surpassed them. In the fifth cen- tury, all trace of the Roman cookery had already dis- appeared. The Eternal City was invested, and her kitchen destroyed by barbarians. The consecutive in- cursions of hordes of barbarous tribes and nations had put out at once the light of science and the fire of cookery. But the darkness of the world was not of long dura- tion. The monks—the much-abused and much mis- taken monks—fanned the embers of a nascent literature, and cherished the flame of a new cookery. The free cities of Italy, Genoa, Venice, Pisa, Florence, the com- mon mothers of poetry, painting, sculpture, and archi- tecture, contemporaneously revived the gastronomic taste. The Mediterranean and the Adriatic offered their dish, and the taste for table luxuries extended itself to the maritinae towns and other cities of the peninsula, to Cadiz, Barcelona, St. Sebastian, and Seville. Spain had the high honor of having furnished the first cook- ' ery book in any modern tongue. It is entitled ' Li bro de Cozino, compuesto por Ruberto de Nola." This work is exceedingly rare. The cookery professed at this epoch was no longer an imitation of the Greek or Roman kitchen, or of the insipid dishes and thick sauces of the Byzantine cooks. It was a new and improved and extended science. It recognized the palate, stomach, and digestion of man. The opulent nobles of Italy, the rich merchant princes, charged with the affairs 6 The Complete Cook Book. and commissions of Europe and Asia, the heads of the church—bishops, cardinals, and popes—now cultivated and encouraged the culinary art. While Italy had made this progress, France, the nurse of modern cooks, was in a state of barbarism, from which she was raised by the Italian wars under Charles VIII. and Louis XII. The Gauls learned a more refined cookery at the siege of Naples, as the Cossacks did, some hundreds of years later, in the Champs Elysees of Paris. It was under Henry III., about 1580, that the delicacies of the Italian tables were introduced at Paris. The sister arts of design and drawing were now called into requisition to decorate dishes and dinner tables. How great was the progress in the short space of one hundred and fifty years may be inferred from an edict of Charles VI., which forbade to his liege subjects a dinner consisting of more than two dishes with the soup : 'Nemo audeat dare praeter duo fercula cum potagio." At this period the dinner hour was ten o'clock in the morning, while the supper was served at four. The first regular cookery book published in France was, we believe, printed at Rouen in 1692. It was the production of the Sieur de la Varranner, esquire of the kitchen of M. d'Uxelles. It is dedicated to MM. Louis Chalon du Bled, Marquis d'Uxelles and of Cormartiu. He expatiates on the thousand- and-one vegetables and other "victual" which people know not how to dress with honor and contentment; and he then exclaims that, as France has borne off the bell from all other nations in courtesy and bienseance, it is only right and proper that she should be no less esteemed for her polite and delicate manner of living. The first edition of that remarkable cookery book, the "Dons de Comus," appeared about 1740, and is in every respect a superior work to the droll production just mentioned. It was composed by M. Marin, cook of the Duchesse de Chaulnes. The cookery of France at this epoch, and indeed from the time of Louis XIV., was distinguished by luxury and sumptuousness, but, according to Careme, was wanting in delicate sensualism. They ate well, indeed, at the court, says the professor of the The Complete Cook Book. 7 culinary art; but the rich citizens, the men of letters, the artists "were only in the course of learning to dine, drink, and laugh with convenance." The regency and reign of Louis XV. were among the grand epochs of French cookery. A book called "The Queen's Closet Opened," published in 1663, is the first English cookery book. Some of the dishes in this book maintain their popularity to the present day—as, for instance, chicken and .pigeon pie, boiled rump of beef, and potted venison; but others have wholly passed away—^as, for example, a baked red deer, a capon laided with lemons, a steak pie with a French pudding in it, a salet of smelts, flounders, or plaice, with garlic and mustard, an olive pie, and dressed snails. Some insight into the cookery of 1754 may be obtained from the pages of the "Connoisseur." In London, at "Dolly's" and "Horsman's" beefsteaks were eaten with gill ale; and behind the 'Change, a man worth a plum used to order a twopenny mess of broth with a boiled chop in it. Placing the chop between the two crusts of a halfpenny'roll, he would wrap it up in his check handkerchief, and carry it away for the morrow's dinner. : : 8 The Complete Cook Book. A POEM BY THE POPE. When the pope turns frona the problems of ecclesias- ticism and statecraft to the writing of a poem on diets, it would seem, the subject is considered of some import- ance. I quote three stanzas here, believing many of my readers will be much interested in it. The poem is originally written in Latin in the style of Horace, and this translation is by Andrew Lang "What diet lends the strength to life and frees The flower of health from each malign disease, The good Ofellus, pupil from of old, And follower of Hippocrates, has told. Eating base gluttony with anxious air. He thus laid down the laws of frugal fare "Neatness comes first. Be thy spare table bright With shining dishes and with napkins white. Be thy Chianti unadulterate To cheer the heart and raise the spirits' weight. Yet trust not much the rosy god ; in fine, Be sure that you put water to your wine. Picked be thy grain and pure thy home-ma(3e bread; Thy meats be delicate and dairy fed. Tender, nor highly spiced thy food nor tease Thy taste with sauces from ^gean seas. Fresh b.e thine eggs— hard boiled or nearly raw, Or deftly poached or simply served au plat, 'There's wit in poaching eggs,' the proverb says, And you may do them in a hundred ways. — The Complete Cook Book. "Nor shun the bowl of foaming milk that feeds The infant and may serve the senior's needs. Next on the board be heaven's gift, honey, placed And sparing of Hyblaean nectar taste; Pulses and salads on thy guests bestow; Even in suburban gardens salads grow. Add chosen fruits—whate'er the times afford Let rose-red apples crown the rustic board. Last comes the beverage of the Orient shore. Mocha, far-off, the fragrant berries bore. Taste the dark fluid with a dainty lip. Digestion waits on pleasure as you sip." ;! ; lo The Complete Cook Book. MY DAUGHTER'S LEARNED TO COOK. We used to have old-fashioned things, like hominy and greens, We used to have just common soup, made out of pork and beans; But now it's bouillon, consomme, and things made from a book, And Pot au Feu and Julienne, since my daughter's learned to cook. We use to have a piece of beef—just ordinary meat. And pickled pigs' feet, spareribs, too^ and other things to eat; While now it's fillet and ragout, and leg of mutton braised, And macaroni au gratin, and sheep's head Holland- aised Escallops a la Versailles—a la this and a la that, And sweetbread a la Dieppoise— it's enough to kill a cat! But while I suffer deeply, I invariably look As if I were delighted 'cause my daughter's learned to cook. We have a lot of salad things, with dressing mayon- naise, In place of oysters. Blue Points fricasseed a dozen ways. And orange Roley Poley, float, and peach meringue, alas. Enough to wreck a stomach that is made of plated brass The good old things have passed away, in silent, sad retreat We've lots of highfalutin things, but nothing much to eat. And while I never say a word, and always pleasant look, You bet I've had dyspepsia since my daughter's learned to cook. 1 The Complete Cook Book. 1 OUR MARKETS. Our markets contain an abundant supply of poultry and game of an exceptionally fine quality. For superior and palatable chickens we are recommended to those raised about the creameries of New Jersey.

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