The present work on cookery appeared in England under the title of "The Official Hand-Book of the National Training School for Cookery," and it contains the lessons on the preparation of food which were practised in that institution. It has been reprinted in this country with some slight revision, for the use of American families, because of its superior merits as a cook-book to be consulted in the ordinary way, and also because it is the plainest, simplest, and most perfect guide to self-education in the Kitchen that has yet appeared. In this respect it represents a very marked advance in an important domestic art hitherto much neglected.

A glance at its contents will show the ground it covers, and how fully it meets the general wants. The dishes for which it provides have been selected with an unusual degree of care and judgment. They have been chosen to meet the needs of well-to-do families, and also those of more moderate means, who must observe a strict economy. Provision is made for an ample and varied diet, and for meals of a simple and frugal character. Receipts are given for an excellent variety of soups, for cooking many kinds of fish in different ways, for the preparation of meats, poultry, game, and vegetables, and for a choice selection of entries, souffles, puddings, jellies, and creams. Besides the courses of a well-ordered dinner, there are directions for making rolls, biscuits, bread, and numerous dishes for breakfast and tea, together with a most valuable set of directions how to prepare food for the sick. The aim has been to meet the wants of the great mass of people who are not rich enough to abandon their kitchen to the management of professional cooks, and who must keep a careful eye to expense. But while the costly refinements of artistic and decorative cookery are avoided, there has been a constant reference to the simple requirements of good taste in the preparation of food for the table.

But the especial merit of this volume, and the character by which it stands alone among cook-books, is the superior method it offers of teaching the art of practical cookery. It is at this vital point that all our current cook-books break down; they make no provision for getting a knowledge of this subject in any systematic way. So much in them is vague, so much taken for granted, and so much is loose, careless, and misleading in their receipts, that they are good for nothing to teach beginners, good for nothing as guides to successful practice, and only of use to those who already know enough to supply their deficiencies and protect themselves against their errors. In fact, the hand-book required to teach cookery effectually cannot be made by any single person in the usual manner, but it must be itself a product of such teaching.

The present volume originated in this way, and embodies a tried and successful method of making good practical cooks. The lessons given in the following pages came from a training kitchen for pupils of all grades, and the directions of its receipts are so minute, explicit, distinct, and complete, that they may be followed with ease by every person of common-sense who has the slightest desire to learn. They are the results of long and careful practice in teaching beginners how to cook, and have grown out of exercises often repeated with a view of making them as perfect as possible. It is commonly regarded as a good thing in a cook-book that its compiler has tested some of its receipts and points out the troubles and failures likely to occur in early trials. But the completeness of the instructions in this work was attained through the stupidities, blunders, mistakes, questionings, and difficulties of hundreds of learners of all capacities, doing the work over and over again under the critical direction of intelligent, practical teachers, who were bent upon finding out the best method of doing each thing, and the best method of teaching others how to do it. Not a single item necessary to perfect the required process is omitted. The steps are separated, and given in numerical order, so as to enforce attention to one thing at a time, and the right thing at the right time, while the precautions against mistakes are so careful that even the dullest can hardly go wrong. Each receipt in the volume is not only the formula for a dish, but it is also a lesson in a practical process, so that in the preparation of every article of food something is gained toward greater proficiency in the art of cooking well.

A few words in regard to the origin of the school in which it was produced will still further illustrate the character of this work. A vigorous movement has been made in England to elevate this branch of domestic economy by establishing schools for training pupils in the art of cookery. These schools have grown immediately out of the need of greater general economy among the working classes, as it was seen that the high prices of provisions were seriously aggravated by not knowing how to make the most of them in their kitchen preparation. The attention of the managers of the South Kensington Museum of Arts in West London was several years ago drawn to the subject; and feeling that something required to be done, they established public lectures on the preparation of food with platform demonstrations of various culinary operations. But it was quickly found that mere exposition and illustration, though not without use, were wholly inadequate to the object in view; because a cooking school, .to be thorough, must provide for practice. Lecturing, and explaining to pupils, and barely showing them how things are done, is sure to fail because cookery, like music, can only be learned by actually doing it. As well undertake to teach the piano by talking and exhibiting its capabilities as to teach a person how to make a dish properly by only listening and looking on. Provision had therefore to be made for forming classes to do themselves what they at first only saw others do.