"To be a good cook means the knowledge of all fruits, herbs, balms and spices, and of all that is healing and sweet in fields and groves, savory in meats.

It means carefulness, incentives, watchfulness, willingness, and readiness of appliance. It means the economy of your greatgrandmother and the science of modern chemistry; it means much tasting and no wasting; it means, English thoroughness, French art, and Arabian hospitality; it means, in fine, that you are to be perfectly and always ladies (loafgivers), and are to see that everybody has something nice to eat." RUSKIN

Foreword

AN excellent housewife once gave, as a part of her receipt for making gooseberry pie, the following direction: "Put in all the sugar your conscience allows; then shut your eyes and add a double handful."

In compiling the present work the editor's conscience has been strained and her eyes have been closed in an opposite process. She had collected far more receipts than could possibly appear in a single volume even of the generous size permitted by the plan of The Household Library. By various sittings, such as the elimination of obvious receipts, of alternative ones, of those which would be infrequently used, of those requiring too costly materials for the average housewife, of rich dishes dangerously near the line of healthfulness, the material in hand was greatly reduced, yet not to the required dimensions. A Procrustean method had to be adopted.

So the editor shut her eyes and took out not one handful, but a number of handfuls, of tried and approved receipts, each as good as the ones that remained, though no better than these. Therefore, if any reader finds that a favorite dish of hers is unrepresented in the work, let her blame the exigencies of publication rather than the intention of the editor.

Under these circumstances space was considered too valuable even for an index. So, as far as possible, the work was made selfindexing. Frequent chapters were formed to permit ready reference, and within each chapter the receipts were arranged, first, according to logical and practical relation, and then alphabetically. For example, in the chapter on "Candies," the general receipt for "Fondant" is followed by special receipts in which fondant is an ingredient, these being arranged in alphabetical order.

Thanks are due the Department of Domestic Science of Teachers' College, Columbia University, for the use of a photograph of the laboratory and of twelve photographs of uncooked meat.

Acknowledgment is also made "The Home Science Magazine" for the use of the illustration, "Three Salted Fish."