The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, May 1883Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
History
The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, May 1883
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
Marks. Pf. $ cts.
One Goose, 3 00 .71
One Turkey, 10 00 2.38
Fish, — — ——
Oysters, — — ——
Ham per lb. 1 80 .428
Corn Beef per lb. 2 00 .47½
Cheese per lb. 50 .12
Butter per lb. 1 80 .428
Lard per lb. 90 .21
Candles per lb. 1 00 .238
Salt per lb. 1 00 .238
Sugar per lb. 60 .14
Coffee per lb. 1 50 .35½
Rice per lb. 40 .10
Chocolate per lb. 80 .19
One dozen Vienna rolls or cakes of bread for 30 days cost $2.50.
Some of these prices will show that Germany is no longer a cheap
country to live in, but the way in which articles of food are used and
managed is where the French and Germans excel in economy. For instance,
American housekeepers say in the winter and fall and spring, “It is
so difficult to keep a good table, because there is so little variety
in our markets.” And when they say this there will oftentimes be ten
different meats and as many vegetables to be had. Now why does this
complaint go on from year to year? Men and women are both to blame
for it, and to show how they are is an easy task. If these ten meats
and corresponding number of vegetable are judiciously managed, both
health and economy can be forwarded. I will enumerate the meats and
vegetables, that no housekeeper may say this is random talk: Beef
(1), mutton (2), veal (3), pork (4), ham (5), corn beef (6), turkey
(7), chicken (8), fish (9), game (10); kidneys, sweet-breads, and
the like, not to be mentioned here, for fear our American taste will
falter. Vegetables: Potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, carrots, onions,
cabbage, beets, beans, squash, celery. Here you have ten without all
the fine canned peas and tomatoes and corn on your shelves. Now, I am
laughing because every delicately-minded woman in America exclaims
at once, “But you have enumerated vegetables that our husbands and
we ourselves would not touch!” Well, neither would a Frenchman, if
they came on his table with the combinations of meat, etc., that you
serve them with. A Frenchman knows (and the highest toned German has
learned from him) that there are chemical affinities in food, and he
selects his meat to correspond with his vegetable, or _vice versa_,
as carefully as he would combine chemical properties in a laboratory;
or as discreetly as he would choose guests for his drawing-room or
dinner-table; or as daintily as his wife would select gloves to match
her bonnet. Food assorted with bad taste and judgment on his table is
as distasteful as a delicate watercolor framed in a moulding which
belongs to a heavy old historical oil painting is to his eye. The
subject may seem to many unworthy such attention. There are those who
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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