o little esteemed
in general, give richness to soups or gravies, if well soaked and
brushed before they are added to the boiling. They are also particularly
nourishing for sick persons. Roast-beef bones, or shank-bones of ham,
make excellent stock for pea-soup.--When the whites of eggs are used for
jelly, confectionary, or other purposes, a pudding or a custard should
be made, that the yolks may be used. All things likely to be wanted
should be in readiness: sugars of different sorts; currants washed,
picked, and perfectly dry; spices pounded, and kept in very small
bottles closely corked, or in canisters, as we have already directed
(72). Not more of these should be purchased at a time than are likely to
be used in the course of a month. Much waste is always prevented by
keeping every article in the place best suited to it. Vegetables keep
best on a stone floor, if the air be excluded; meat, in a cold dry
place; as also salt, sugar, sweet-meats, candles, dried meats, and hams.
Rice, and all sorts of seed for puddings, should be closely covered to
preserve them from insects; but even this will not prevent them from
being affected by these destroyers, if they are long and carelessly
kept.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IV.

INTRODUCTION TO COOKERY.

76. AS IN THE FINE ARTS, the progress of mankind from barbarism to
civilization is marked by a gradual succession of triumphs over the rude
materialities of nature, so in the art of cookery is the progress
gradual from the earliest and simplest modes, to those of the most
complicated and refined. Plain or rudely-carved stones, tumuli, or
mounds of earth, are the monuments by which barbarous tribes denote the
events of their history, to be succeeded, only in the long course of a
series of ages, by beautifully-proportioned columns, gracefully-sculptured
statues, triumphal arches, coins, medals, and the higher efforts of the
pencil and the pen, as man advances by culture and observation to the
perfection of his facilities. So is it with the art of cookery. Man,
in his primitive state, lives upon roots and the fruits of the earth,
until, by degrees, he is driven to seek for new means, by which his
wants may be supplied and enlarged. He then becomes a hunter and a
fisher. As his species increases, greater necessities come upon him,
when he gradually abandons the roving life of the savage for the more
stationary pursuits of the herdsman. These beget still more settled
habit