husband and wife become accustomed to better cooking than they could get
at home and there is a continuance of the custom, for both get a
distaste for plainly cooked food, and the wife does not know how to cook
any other way.

Yet when all is considered the difference between plain American cooking
and what is termed Foreign cooking, is but the proper use of condiments
and seasoning, combined with proper variety of the food supply from the
markets. Herein lies the secret of a good table-proper combination of
ingredients and proper variation and selection of the provisions
together with proper preparation and cooking of the food.

We have met with many well educated and well raised men and women whose
gastronomic knowledge was so limited as to be appalling. All they knew
of meats was confined to ordinary poultry, i. e., chickens and turkeys,
and to beef, veal, pork, and mutton. Of these there were but three modes
of cooking--frying, stewing and baking, sometimes boiling. Their chops
were always fried as they knew nothing of the delicate flavor imparted
by broiling. In fact their knowledge was confined to the least healthful
and least nutritious modes of preparation and cooking. Not only is this
true of the average American family, but their lack of knowledge of the
fundamentals of cooking and food values brings about a waste largely
responsible for what is called the "high cost of living." It is a trite,
but nevertheless true saying that a French family could live well on
what an American family wastes. Waste in preparation is but the mildest
form of waste. Waste consequent upon lack of knowledge of food values is
the waste that is doubly expensive for it not only wastes food but it
also wastes the system whose energy is exhausted in trying to assimilate
improper alimentation.