as required. Such good
prices have been paid by manufacturers that they have been able to
obtain the best writers, and the books distributed by various salves,
sarsaparillas, meat choppers, baking powders, etc., contain many
valuable recipes and suggestions. As a whole, they are far safer guides
than the average newspaper column of recipes.

Furnished by untrained hands, the newspaper recipe has become a synonym
for something utterly unreliable, and, therefore, a byword among those
so old-fashioned as to believe that a woman who holds a pen is, of
course, a poor housekeeper.

True, much of the blame for the uncertainty of the newspaper recipe must
be laid at the door of the typesetter and proof-reader--who else would
make a demonstrator whose programme included a "Frozen Rice Pudding"
responsible for a "Dozen Nice Puddings" in a single lecture.

Often the column headed "Dainty Dishes," "Hints for the Cuisine," etc.,
appears to be made up from recipes taken at random from the clippings of
the year before--so we have strawberry shortcake and asparagus omelet in
October, cauliflower in August, and blueberries in December. Without a
hint concerning the proper method of combining the ingredients, a string
of recipes are worthless, and mean as little as a column from the
dictionary.

So accustomed has the public vision become to this artificial,
improbable, housekeeping that it fails to recognize veritable facts and
pronounces them impossible.

Food is a subject which demands the careful consideration of every human
being daily, and therefore claims ample space in the newspapers. The
wise man of the Old Testament has said: "All the labor of man is for his
mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled."

We are not all interested in the success of either political party, nor
are we all thirsty for items of society gossip, nor are the details of
every murder or railroad accident more important than our daily bread.

Our physical natures and our food are not so ignoble as some would have
us think. We need only look at the thousand allusions to food in classic
writings to realize that it is our attitude toward an object, not the
thing itself, which makes it common and unclean.

Does it not seem strange that the art of cookery, which first
distinguished man from beasts, has been so underrated and neglected?

"The art of cookery drew us gently forth
From the ferocious light, when, void of faith,
The Anthropophaginian