SANITARY COOKING.[5] [Footnote 5: Read before the Indiana State Sanitary Society, Seymour, March 13, 1884.--_The Sanitarian._] By VIRGINIA L. OPPENHEIMER, M.D., Seymour, Ind. "We may live without poetry, music, and art, We may live without conscience, and live without heart, We may live without friends, We may live without books, But civilized man cannot live without cooks. "We may live without books-- What is knowledge but grieving? We may live without hope-- What is hope but deceiving? We may live without love--what is passion but pining? But where is the man that can live without dining?" Thus saith the poet, and forthwith turns the world over into the hands of the cook. And into what better hands could you fall? To you, my fat, jolly, four-meals-a-day friend, Mr. Gourmand, but more especially to _you_, my somber, lean, dyspeptic, two-meals-a-day friend, Mr. Grumbler, the cook is indeed a valuable friend. The cook wields a scepter that is only second in power to that of love; and even love has become soured through the evil instrumentality of the good-looking or bad-cooking cook. This is no jest, it is a very sad fact. Now, the question arises, how can the cook preserve the health of her patrons, maintain happiness in the family, and yet not throw the gourmands into bankruptcy? Very simple, I assure you. 1. You must have _the_ cook. I mean by this, that not every one can occupy that important office. The greatest consideration in the qualities of a cook is, does she like the work? No one can fulfill the duties of any noteworthy office unless he labors at them with vim and willingness. 2. You must have good articles of food originally. 3. As our honest Iago said, "You must have change." When one arrives at adult age, he should have learned by experience what articles of food _do_, and what articles of food do _not_, agree with him, and to shun the latter, no matter how daintily served or how tempting the circumstances. The man who knows that _pates de foie gras_, or the livers of abnormally fattened geese, disagree with him, and still eats them, is not to be pitied when all the horrors of dyspepsia overtake him. The cooking of any article of food has evidently much, very much, to do with its digestibility. It is not the purpose of this paper to teach cooking, but merely to give some general hints as to the best as well as the simplest methods of preparing staple articles of food. The same articles of food can and should be prepared differently on each day of the week. Changes of diet are too likely to be underestimated. By constant change the digestive organs in the average person are prevented from having that repulsion of food which, to a greater or less extent, is likely to result from a sameness of diet continued for a long time.