LUNCH AT THE GAS OFFICES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10412, 9 April 1897, Page 6

LUNCH AT THE GAS OFFICES.

The effort of the Gas Company o popularise good cookery is praiseworthy in the highest degree. It is business with them to be sore, and they make no other prof ession of their zeal. All the same, the object is so generally beneficial, »nd they are so earnest in it, that despite the disclaimer one is inclined to credit them with just a little snupijon of the altruiitio. However this may be, the results of what they are now doing in promoting classes for the teaching of simple good cookery, cannot fail to be a blesiing to many a family, and the utmost popular encouragement ought to be given to them to go on and prosper. It is a scientific and admitted fact that food cooked to perfection is at least a fourth more nutritious than the same food indifferently prepared and cooked, and in the same proportion one-fourth less food material is necessary to sustain a man in vigorous strength, to say nothing about the indigestion and other ailments that come of badly cooked food. There is thus a sensible saving in the cook of a family, whether wife or daughter, being acquainted with her work, and the economy to a working man's family iu the year from a possible saving of one fourth of their food expenses must be appreciable. Besides if the food is indifferently prepared and cooked, a man being obliged to stow away enough to sustain him gets paunchy, stuffy, and uncomfortable, whereas a man taking well cooked food carries it snugly and conveniently about with him, and gets the good of it all, and may preserve a slim and genteel appearance to the end of his days, If these arguments are not enough to induce a man to eend his wife, or daughter, or cook to learu cooking, he should drop into one of these classes at- lunch time. Yesterday was no day in particular, but a visit to the cooking and luncheon room in the rear of the gas offices in Wyndham-street at one o'clock showed the whole business in operation. A dozen pretty girls, got up tin professional cooking costume, moving actively before the cooking stoves and about the tables, and deftly haudliug cooking forks add plates and dishes, were the first thing to attract the eye. But besides the girls, there were the gas cooking stoves—four or five of them, all iu a row, in full blast, emitting the odour of savoury things; and a long table and one or two smaller ones, all in dainty dimity, covered with dishes and plates and all the. etceteras that mean business.

To be waited ou by such a bevy of pretty girts was a treat in itself, and one felt like what Dr. Watts' good little boy said about the Sunday-school:

1 lime been there, and still would go. "Tis like a little heaven below. But wheu tiie food was placed, that waa the climax, and one felt really good. Oyster soup, with the oysters still as tender as wheu taken from the shells. How it was done we can't tell, Mrs.Boss &nd her pupils know; but instead of the leathery tilings, to which the oyster is ordinarily converted in cooking— and which require as much chewing as a tag from the sole of a boot, and are even then bolted whole, and seem to remain in your chest for the rest of the day, a vivid reminder Chat you have taken oyater soup—these one's melted at touch, and except for their warmth and the warmth of the luscious oysterflavoured fluid in which they floated, were for all the world as you pick them off the rocks on Rangitoto. Then the dainty little slices of fish that followed—the mills, so tender, so toothsonic, so appetising, that one could not repress a rising sense of regret that he had taken any breakfast. Then the pudding deftly compounded of the simplest materials, yet producing such a tout ensemble of blended deliciousuess, that one only felt sorry that what had gone before had been so tempting. For it is to be noted that—in this repast at least—the materials were those in use in the simplest households, so as to present in the clearest relief the difference that is made by good cooking. Now how, it may be asked, is all this manipulation ofledibles maintained without loss, and what becomes of the good things when they are cooked? Well, it appears that every girl pupil has invited her best boy, and he pays for his lunch at restaurant price; or, iu the absence of her best one, then the second beat, or her mother or her father, or a friend, and so the tables are generally filled. But any good-looking man, and the ladies all, are alway« welcome, even without an introduction, and so the more that come, the more practice is there for the pretty girls in their lessons, and thus the visitors gather up the fragments so that nothing ia lost. This particular luncheon class, it appears, meeia only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, at one, so that anyone desirous of ■blending philanthropy, gastronomy, and esthetics, by coming on those days and paying his ninepence, gives encouragement to the cultivation of a n.ost estimable art, gets a luncheon, the savour of which will linger about hie gills for a month, and will have the pleasure too ot being waited oa by a bevy cf charming waitresses. But this is only one of a large series of classes that are being carried on here and throughout the city by Mrs. Ro9s, whose credentials as to her own training as a Professor in the culinary art, and of her skill in tuition, suggest that Auckland enjoys a rare privilege in her presence in the city. We shall not refer in detail to those various classes, but only specify one, because of its setting an example that ought to be followed by others. In one large manufacturing establishment in this city a class of this kind is being carried ou, mainly tin'mull the support given to it by the firm. Tne name should be mentioned ; it is that of Mr. Van Breda. _ In this the youu;; working girls that 'desire it have au opportunity of learning cooking under Mrs. Ross. It is in the case of such young workers as these that this training is specially appropriate. They are withdrawn from domestic duties by their daily employment, and it is a considerate thing of an employer to take an interest in seeing that his ynung workers are to this extent fitted tor what will to most of them be their future sphere of wives and mothers. The relations between the clothing manufacturers and their girl workers are more friendly and kindly in Auckland, we believe, than in any other city in New Zealand, and it would be in keeping with that spirit if the manufacturers generally followed the example of Mr. Van Breda. Again, how many a good mistress possessed ot a good servant might show her appreciation of the girl by giving her a aeries or these lessons in cookery. Bad mistresses wilt not do it, and a bad servant does not deserve it, and would give a return by leaving with her knowledge whenever she could get better wages. But where the good mistress and the worthy girl are associated no better mark of kindness and appreciation could be shown, nor any that would more attach a servant or bring a better return to the family through the servant herself.

This matter of good cookiug is coming up among the great social forces of the day, end though it may seem like taking humanity at its lowest plane, it is nevertheless a fact that slovenly cooking is very often one of the principal factors where "marriage is a failure."