The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Virginia Housewife, by Mary Randolph

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Title: The Virginia Housewife

Author: Mary Randolph

Release Date: June 4, 2004 [eBook #12519]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VIRGINIA HOUSEWIFE***

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THE VIRGINIA HOUSEWIFE

Or, Methodical Cook

By

MRS. MARY RANDOLPH

1860

Method Is the Soul of Management

PREFACE

The difficulties I encountered when I first entered on the duties of a
housekeeping life, from the want of books sufficiently clear and concise
to impart knowledge to a Tyro, compelled me to study the subject, and by
actual experiment to reduce every thing in the culinary line, to proper
weights and measures. This method I found not only to diminish the
necessary attention and labour, but to be also economical: for, when the
ingredients employed were given in just proportions, the article made
was always equally good. The government of a family, bears a Lilliputian
resemblance to the government of a nation. The contents of the Treasury
must be known, and great care taken to keep the expenditures from being
equal to the receipts. A regular system must be introduced into each
department, which may be modified until matured, and should then pass
into an inviolable law. The grand arcanum of management lies in three
simple rules:--"Let every thing be done at a proper time, keep every
thing in its proper place, and put every thing to its proper use." If
the mistress of a family, will every morning examine minutely the
different departments of her household, she must detect errors in their
infant state, when they can be corrected with ease; but a few days'
growth gives them gigantic strength: and disorder, with all her
attendant evils, are introduced. Early rising is also essential to the
good government of a family. A late breakfast deranges the whole
business of the day, and throws a portion of it on the next, which opens
the door for confusion to enter. The greater part of the following
receipts have been written fr