AN AMERICAN COOK BOOK

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22467, 30 July 1938, Page 18

AN AMERICAN COOK BOOK

HANNAH DUTAUD’S GUIDE

The Glorious Art of Home Cooking: How to Plan, Prepare, Serve, with Recipes lor Every Need. By Hannah Dutaud. Associated Authors, Chicago. 282 pp. Christchurch Agent, Ethne Tosswill, Josephine’s Kitchen.

Miss Dutaud, a celebrity of the kitchen in a country celebrated for its cooking, writes as an enthusiast and as an expert. She would despise any housewife who turned to her for aid simply in accomplishing the meals of the day with a minimum of trouble and the success that provides enough and justifies no complaints. She would be shocked by the standards of any whose aim was to establish a routine, on that principle, to save time, labour, and thought. When Miss Dutaud put the “glorious art” of cooking in her title, she meant it. She glories in the administration of her province; and nobody who consults this book should be surprised by the high tone- of some of its advice: “Knowledge and technique must not rust for lack of intelligent application; and above all there must be vision . . . . Nothing savours of monotony in this work. No, on the contrary, it calls for a good supply of imagination to continuously provide the table with pleasing and nourishing foods.” It is in keeping with this pride in various perfection that Miss Dutaud begins with 30 or 40 pages of general advice, in which the planning of meals, the serving of them, the arrangement and equipment and running of the kitchen, and standard processes are well covered. The chapters that follow should be listed, to give an idea of the scope of the book: milk and eggs; cereals; sugars; beverages; nuts and vetetarian dishes; fruits; vegetables; canning and preserving; meats; poultry; fish; sauces, condiments, j spices, and flavours; soups; salads; j breads; pies; cakes; icing; souffles; | desserts; ice-cream, ices, and parfaits; sandwiches and canapes; nursing and infant feeding. There are added, then, a collection of “helpful reminders,” a culinary dictionary, and the index. Take potatoes: boiled, mashed, baked, and fried exhaust the variety of the commonplace cook. Miss Dutaud has 15 methods —not including tricks like chipped potatoes, or split potatoes, or even potato salad. (Try “Potatoes O’Brien”!) Or move to stranger ground—stranger, but far removed from mere freakishness: Cape Ann salad brings together butter beans, peas, diced carrots, diced beet, and cucumber, in even quantities, all cooked and chilled, all marinated except the cucumber and the beet. Drain from French dressing; mix with mayonnaise, with some whipped cream; put the beet in last. A rub of garlic round the bowl, a flourish of lettuce leaves to cup the salad; and top it off with thin slices of radish and finely chopped green pepper and parsley. (Having no green pepper? Leave it out, then. Disliking garlic? You’ve probably never tried it. Only a rub round the bowl . . . .) Miss Dutaud’s measures are cup and spoon, in addition to the usual liquid and solid scale. She does not give temperatures but uses the old terms, light, slow, moderate, hot, and fierce, and for candies the “soft ball,” “hard ball,” and “crack” tests.