The Art of Living in Australia: Together with Three Hundred Australian Cookery Recipes and Accessory Kitchen Information by Mrs. H. WickenMuskett, Philip E.
Science
The Art of Living in Australia: Together with Three Hundred Australian Cookery Recipes and Accessory Kitchen Information by Mrs. H. Wicken
Muskett, Philip E.
Australia -- Social life and customs; Cooking, Australian; Health; Hygiene
Indigestion, then, is the great primary result of bad cookery. But, on
the other hand, let us hear what Dr. Lauder Brunton has to say on the
score of food when properly prepared. "Savoury food," says he, "causes
the digestive juices to be freely secreted; well cooked and palatable
food is therefore more digestible than unpalatable, and if the food
lacks savour, a desire naturally arises to supply it by condiments, not
always well selected or wholesome."
But important as good Cookery, in itself, may be in its influence upon
health, there is still another essential, which must not be
overlooked. And it is that of variety. The oft-quoted phrase of
TOUJOURS PERDRIX bears upon this very point. It is a way of saying that
even a luscious dish when constantly repeated becomes wearisome, or, in
other words, that there is too much of the same thing over and over
again. And if a ceaseless repetition of the same dish--however well it
may be cooked--palls upon the palate, it is at least certain that it
is equally burdensome to the stomach. Dr. Horace Dobell well expresses
this fact when he says that it is of the highest importance to avoid
unnecessarily limiting the variety of food allowed to all persons, but
especially to those of poor appetites and troublesome digestions.
Monotonous, uninteresting meals depress the spirits and are subversive
of appetite, digestion, and nutrition.
COOKERY AS A PREVENTIVE OF DRUNKENNESS.
Plutarch tells us that Themistocles laughing at his own son, who got
his mother, and by his mother's means his father also, to indulge him,
said to the boy that he had the most power of anyone in Greece: "For
the Athenians command the rest of Greece, I command the Athenians, your
mother commands me, and you command your mother." In the same way it is
easy to make a defective system of education responsible for much of
the existing drunkenness. First of all we have a scheme of education
which fails to provide instruction in a girl's domestic duties; then we
have the wife who undertakes the task for which she has never been
properly trained; next, instead of well-cooked and very much varied
meals, we have a conspicuous and a disastrous failure; and finally, we
have the bread-winner driven to the public-house--and happiness has
left that home for ever. But this is an old story, yet, unfortunately,
it is a true one; and it will continue to be true until a clearer
perception of what a domestic training should be is more
universally recognised. I am sure that I do not exaggerate when I say
that millions of our English-speaking race are living this life without
the slightest glimmering of what domestic content might be theirs.
Surely the word "home" for the artisan should signify something more
than a place where he is badly fed. Still, it is a solemn fact that no
more concrete definition of the word has ever been forthcoming. Now,
such a state of affairs cannot be excused on the score of expense, for
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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