ECONOMY IN THE USE OF FOOD.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue VI, 10 August 1895, Page 182

ECONOMY IN THE USE OF FOOD.

• I wouldn’t be as mean as that woman is, for anything 1’ exclaimed a young housekeeper. * She saves little bits and scraps of meat and vegetables for soups and gravies, and what she calls little made dishes. For 6d she could have bought more meat than she saved, and conld have given the scraps to the chickens.’ • And so no doubt she could, my dear,’ replied her companion, a mature woman of practical experience. ‘ But that would be unnecessary and wasteful. I am a rather old-fashioned woman, you know, and have old-fashioned notions, one of which is that I believe wastefulness and needless extravagance to be a crime. Besides, 1 cannot imagine a real lady, or, as the term pleases me better, a gentlewoman, as extravagant or wasteful in any respect. Of course she must not be parsimonious—there is a wide difference between economy and stinginess. One means a careful regard for the blessings of life, both great and small, and a proper appreciation of their value and importance. The other is the worst form of selfishness, and often leads to self neglect, and allows its victim to starve rather than Cvide the necessaries of life. Poor and stingy persons are enough, goodness knows, but the rich and stingy are an abomination. * As to the care of food. I think wastefulness in this direction a very serious affair. Genuine ecoi onrry demands that great pains shoo'd be exercised not only in the care bnt in the purchase of food. A little experience and observation will teach the proper quantity to buy, and nothing should be wasted. Food left after meals should be carefully put away on dishes specially provided for the purpose and used for nothing else. There is often quite enough for next

day’s luncheon, if a little time and care is used in its preparation, and the cook has brains and a proper regard for small economies. Indeed, without these, a cook is a most extravagant addition to an establishment. * There are French cooks who make a fine art of economy in little dishes. They will get up a dainty and relishable dinner or luncheon from a few odds and ends, and one can but wonder how they achieve such results with so little material.

* A Frenchwoman who gave the most exquisite little teas and luncheons used to say that her bill at the grocer’s was so small that she sometimes wondered if the man thought she had enough to eat; he used to look at her in such a queer way when she went for the few articles she required. But her table was a dream, and those who tasted her dainties were always glad to accept an invitation to come again.’