ter, gathering vegetables, picking chickens,
scouring all things from the big pot to the floor. Shelves were scoured
daily, the floor three times a week. This had to be a matter of faith
after an hour or so--it certainly did not look it. Sweeping, done three
times a day, was largely a matter of form. Phoebe went conscientiously
over the uncluttered spaces, and even reached the nose of her broom
between pots and ovens, but only coarse trash gathered before the
broom--all the rest went through the cracks.

Mammy said Phoebe's news could be believed. "De gal don't know no mo'n
ter tell dest whut she done heard." She truly was slow-witted and
slow-spoken, but Isham, her step-father, was cook to the Gresham
brothers, the beaux of the neighborhood, who kept bachelor's hall. His
mother had been their Mammy--hence his inherited privilege of knowing
rather more about his young masters than they knew themselves.

Little pitchers have big ears. Set it to the credit of the black folk,
they always had regard for the innocence of childhood. Scandal was
merely breathed--not even so hinted as to arouse curiosity. Foul speech
I never heard from them nor a trace of profanity. What I did hear was a
liberal education in the humanities--as time passes I rate more and more
highly the sense of values it fixed in a plastic mind. I think it must
have been because our Mammys saw all things from the elemental angle,
they were critics so illuminating of manners and morals.

Here ends reminiscence, set down in hope it may breed understanding. All
I actually learned from Mammy and her cooking was--how things ought to
taste. The which is essential. It has been the pole-star of my career as
a cook. Followed faithfully along the Way of Many Failures, through a
Country of Tribulations, it has brought me into the haven of knowledge
absolute. If the testimony of empty plates and smiling guests can
establish a fact, then I am a good cook--though limited. I profess only
to cook the things I care to cook well. Hence I have set my hand to
this, a real cook's book. Most cook books are written by folk who cook
by hearsay--it is the fewest number of real cooks who can write so as
not to bewilder the common or garden variety of mind. The bulk of what
follows has an old-time Southern foundation, with such frillings as
experience approves. To it there will be added somewhat of Creole
cookery, learned and proved here in New York town by grace of Milly, the
very qu