ectual
interest on the part of the student reside in them.

Result is that one finds the greatest difficulty in securing a really
good baked potato, a well-cooked steak, or a wholesome dish of
apple-sauce that is not strained and flavored beyond recognition. It is
nearly impossible for one to secure an egg fried hard and yet very
tender and that has not been "turned" or scorched on the edges,--this is
quite the test of the skill of the good cook. The notion that a hard
fried egg is dangerously indigestible is probably a fable of poor
cookery. One can secure many sophisticated and disguised egg dishes, but
I think skill in plainly cooking eggs is almost an unknown art, perhaps
a little-practised art.

Now, it is on these simple and essential things that I would start my
instruction in cookery; and this not only for the gain to good eating
but also for the advantage of vigor and good morals. I am afraid that
our cooking does not set a good example before the young three times
every day in the year; and how eager are the young and how amenable to
suggestion at these three blessed epochs every day in the year!

Some unsympathetic reader will say that I am drawing a long bow; yet
undoubtedly our cookery has prepared the public mind for the
adulteration. Knowing the elaboration of many of the foods and fancy
dishes, the use of flavoring and spice and other additions to disguise
unwholesome materials, the addition of coloring matter to make things
attractive, the mixtures, the elaborate designs and trimmings and
concoctions, and various deceptions, one wonders how far is the step
from some of the cookery to some of the adulteration and whether these
processes are really all of one piece. I will leave with my reader a
paragraph assembled from a statement made by a food chemist but a few
years ago, to let him compare adulteration with what is regarded as
legitimate food preparation and note the essential similarity of many of
the processes. I do not mean to enter the discussion of food
adulteration, and I do not know whether these sophistications are true
at the present day; but the statement describes a situation in which we
found ourselves and indicates what had become a staggering infidelity in
the use of the good raw materials.

Hamburg steak often contains sodium sulphite; bologna sausage and
similar meats until recently usually contained a large percentage of
added cereal. "Pancake flour" often contains little if any b