GOOD COOKERY

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 57, 29 November 1924, Page 15

GOOD COOKERY

A VITAL ACCOMPLISHMENT.

Mr. W. H. Rankin, one of the United States delegates to the recent International Advertising Convention in England has been praising the British on his arrival back in America. He mentioned that we were a great people were hospitable, businesslike, friendly to Americans, and were able to make a good cup or like this mention of the cup of tea because, though I think the truth of it too often disputable yet it brings vague compliments down to concrete terms and because it shows how much what are usually considered small points affect our judgment, writes John Blunt in the “Daily Mail.”

Many places linger in our memory mainly because of what we eat there. This is quite true, although it sounds mundane. We say, “Oh, yes, that s where we had that delicious omelette,” or we say, “Don’t I remember it—the cakes were stale 1” Scenery and sunsets are easily forgotten and leave only a pleasing blur but an exquisite or an execrable meal linger in our minds for ever.

I cannot say for certain, of course, but I am inclined to guess that when Mr. Rankin has forgotten., more or less, our other good qualities, he will etill remember the good quality of our tea. He was fortunate, I. admit, but that has nothing to do with my argument, which is that cooking is often the real way to our. regard. However fond of our friends wo may be, wo fight shy of going to. their houses if the cooking is notoriously bad. And, conversely, we may welcome the invitation of a bore who happens to have the palate of nn epicure. Good cooking is ono of the least cloving of all the jovs of life, whereas bad cooking has a dismal influence upon one’s spirits. We may not care to admit this, for manv of, us like to pose as above all such trifles, but nevertheless with regard to the majoritv of us it is an absolute fact It" seems to me that the girls of to-day make a vital mistake in despising this most primary of all domestic accomplishment?. Indeed, .it is a pvschological as well as a material mistake, for tho contentment, or otherwise, of n household is very largely centred in the kitchen. Mankind has not past the animal stage where eating is merely the function of staving off hunger. It is that, but it is also something more. A meal affects a man’s brain as well as his body—and the effect may bo a good or a bad one. Food, and drink, in short, have an aesthetic qualitv which it is foolish to ignore Superior people make cheap jokes about low thinking and high, living, but good cookerv and simplicity may go hand in hand. You might just as well argue that the best-dressed woman must be the most expensively dressed woman. And that, as we know perfect 1v well, is often not by anv means the case. People who have a contempt for good cookerv are muddle-headed. They think that good cookerv means luxury, which, of course, need not be the

case at all. I have known very good cookery in cottages,’and I have known very bad cookery in mansions, and good cookery is an ■ accomplishment which does not depend on a bank-bal ance. Let us not despise the reasonable pleasures of the table—life is not so full of happiness that we may lightly ignore one of the most obvious and harmless forms of it that is presented to us