"Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's
self, so to have somewhat left to give, instead of being always prompt to
grab."--_Emerson._




Foreword.


"Diet cures mair than physic."--_Scotch Proverb._

"The first wealth is health."--_Emerson._


"Of making books there is no end," and as this is no less true of cookery
books than of those devoted to each and every other subject of human
interest, one rather hesitates to add anything to the sum of domestic
literature. But while every department of the culinary art has been
elaborated _ad nauseam_, there is still considerable ignorance
regarding some of the most elementary principles which underlie the food
question, the relative values of food-stuffs, and the best methods of
adapting these to the many and varied needs of the human frame. This is
peculiarly evident in regard to a non-flesh diet. Of course one must not
forget that there are not a few, even in this age, to whom the bare idea of
contriving the daily dinner, without the aid of the time-honoured
flesh-pots, would seem scarcely less impious than absurd, as if it
threatened the very foundations of law and order. Still there is a large
and ever increasing number whose watch word is progress and reform, who