WHEN the meat comes from the market, after weighing, wipe it thoroughly with a clean cheesecloth wrung out of hot water. Do not wash it. Then compute the time necessary for cooking. Beef, if desired rare, should be cooked ten minutes for each pound counted after the first fifteen, twenty, or thirty minutes, depending upon the size of the meat. Take a roast, weighing eight pounds, desired rare: count eighty plus twenty minutes, or one hour and forty minutes. If dinner is to be at six-thirty, the oven must be ready, and the meat go in promptly at ten minutes of five. If desired better done, it needs to be placed in the oven at four-thirty, as the eight pounds multiplied by twelve minutes equals ninety-six, plus twenty equals one hundred and sixteen, which is two hours within four minutes.

The meat should not be seasoned nor dredged with flour, but placed in a hot oven, whether the piece be large or small. There are directions which say " the smaller the meat the hotter the oven," and others that state exactly the opposite. Let us make this seeming discrepancy quite plain to the beginner. It all depends on the size, but especially the shape of the roast.

When a large roast is put in the oven, it takes with it a sufficient proportion of cold to perceptibly lower the heat of the oven, and this has to be regained before the surfaces of the meat can be seared over and prevent escape of the juices. On the other hand, because meat is a poor conductor of heat, the surface of a large piece of meat becomes burned or charred before the heat reaches the interior if the oven be too hot at first. The very hot oven sears or coagulates the surfaces of a small roast quickly, and therefore aids in the retention' of the juices in which the meat should cook.

Hence, the sensible directions are that the oven should be relatively hotter for the smaller roast than for the large one, and then the heat be more quickly lowered to complete the cooking. The first heat of the oven should be more moderate relatively for the larger piece, but be more evenly maintained.

Meat in general should not be seasoned before cooking. Salt has what is called in physics an affinity for water, and when placed on the surface of the meat does not penetrate, but draws the juices of the meat toward the surface, thus rendering the meat tougher and more tasteless. The time to season is when the cooking is finished.

We are fully aware of the skepticism raised in the old-fashioned cook's mind by such a statement, but science has proved it correct. And we can only request the skeptics to do the fair thing and try it for themselves. Let them take two roasts, a week or so apart, as nearly alike as possible, weighing each before and after cooking, salting one and not the other, and not telling the family what has been done. Then record and compare the results in the two. This is the real way to learn " just how."