terials of life.

So cookery has come to be a process of concealment. Not only does it
conceal the materials, but it also conceals the names of them in a
ridiculous nomenclature. Apparently, the higher the art of cookery, the
greater is the merit of complete concealment. I think that one reason
why persons enjoy the simple cooking of farmers and sailors and other
elemental folk, is because of its comparative lack of disguise, although
they may not be aware of this merit of it. We have so successfully
disguised our viands through so many years that it is not "good form" to
make inquiries: we may not smell the food, although the odor should be
one of the best and most rightful satisfactions, as it is in fruits and
flowers. We may smell a parsnip or a potato when it grows in the field,
but not when it is cooked.

We add the extrinsic and meaningless odors of spices and flavorings,
forgetting that odor no less than music hath occasions; each of the
materials has its own odor that the discriminating cook will try to
bring out in its best expression. Were we to be deprived of all these
exotic seasonings, undoubtedly cookery would be the gainer in the end;
nor could we so readily disguise materials that in themselves are not
fit to eat. There is a reason why "all foods taste alike," as we often
hear it said of the cooking in public places.

Moreover, we want everything that is out of season, necessitating great
attention to the arts of preserving and requiring still further
fabrication; and by this desire we also lessen the meaning of the
seasons when they come in their natural sequence, bringing their
treasure of materials that are adapted to the time and to the place. We
can understand, then, why it so happens that we neglect the cookery of
the common foods, as seeming to be not quite worth the while, and expend
ourselves with so much effort on the accessories and the frills. I have
been interested to observe some of the instruction in cooking,--how it
often begins with little desserts, and fudge, and a variety of dib-dabs.
This is much like the instruction in manual training that begins with
formal and meaningless model work or trivialities and neglects the
issues of life. It is much like some of the teaching in agriculture not
so many years ago, before we attacked very effectively the serious
problems of wheat and alfalfa and forests and markets. Mastery does not
lie in these pieces of play work, nor does the best intell