COOKERY IN SCHOOLS.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 2887, 12 December 1898, Page 4

COOKERY IN SCHOOLS.

Cookery, says the Wairarapa Star, might be regarded as one of the lost arts of this country if it had ever possessed any. One fine morning the general public awoke to the. fact that cookery was not by any means what it ought to be m this favoured clime, and therefore something ought to be done to improve it. Before the question of the proper method of cooking food is entertained a previous one should first be settled. It is not of much avail that the food be properly cooked if it is not the right sort of food for people to. consume under the special conditions of their existence. The food may be wholesome m itself, but not for those who eat it. It is idle to talk of reform m cooking when people are content to eat tough joints, often cold, day after day as their chief dish, because it saves trouble m preparation. And the fact brings us to the chief cause of bad cooking, the unwillingness to take the necessary trouble which is the first essential m producing food properly cooked. The English on the whole may be described as an industrious race, but they are lazy m their methods of cooking, and means are chiefly adopted because they save trouble, and New Zealand has inherited the English methods of cooking m an aggravated form. To cure the evil it will be first be necessary to instil into the people the factthat good cooking requires a good deal more more trouble and pains than they seem at present inclined to bestow upon the matter. To accomplish this may not prove so easy as it looks, but without it all the lessons m the art will be thrown away. You may teach children m school, by occasional lessons, how to cook and prepare certain dishes, you may have an exhibition of cookery accompanied with appropriate music, songs and recitations, and yet the food will be cooked at home for daily consumption precisely m the same way as before. The necessary reform can only be obtained by the constant practice of cooking food at school, so that the habit may be retained by the girl when she leaves and becomes a housekeeper herself, especially if by that time she has acquired a personal taste for decently prepared dishes.