e,
in the usual manner, we have the thin parts overdone, and the skinny
and fibrous parts utterly dried up, by the application of the amount
of heat necessary to cook the thick portion. Supposing the joint to
weigh six pounds, at thirty cents, and that one third of the weight is
so treated as to become perfectly useless, we throw away sixty cents.
Of a piece of beef at twenty-five cents a pound, fifty cents' worth is
often lost in bone, fat, and burnt skin.

The fact is, this way of selling and cooking meat in large, gross
portions is of English origin, and belongs to a country where all the
customs of society spring from a class who have no particular occasion
for economy. The practice of minute and delicate division comes from a
nation which acknowledges the need of economy, and has made it a
study. A quarter of lamb in this mode of division would be sold in
three nicely prepared portions. The thick part would be sold by
itself, for a neat, compact little roast; the rib-bones would be
artistically separated, and all the edible matters scraped away would
form those delicate dishes of lamb-chop which, fried in bread-crumbs
to a golden brown, are so ornamental and so palatable a side-dish; the
trimmings which remain after this division would be destined to the
soup kettle or stew pan. In a French market is a little portion for
every purse, and the far-famed and delicately flavored soups and stews
which have arisen out of French economy are a study worth a
housekeeper's attention. Not one atom of food is wasted in the French
modes of preparation; even tough animal cartilages and sinews, instead
of appearing burnt and blackened in company with the roast meat to
which they happen to be related, are treated according to their own
laws, and come out either in savory soups, or those fine, clear
meat-jellies which form a garnish no less agreeable to the eye than
palatable to the taste.

Whether this careful, economical, practical style of meat cooking
can ever to any great extent be introduced into our kitchens now is a
question. Our butchers are against it; our servants are wedded to
the old wholesale wasteful ways, which seem to them easier because
they are accustomed to them. A cook who will keep and properly tend
a soup kettle which shall receive and utilize all that the coarse
preparations of the butcher would require her to trim away, who
understands the art of making the most of all these remains, is a
treasure scarce