Chapter 115—Healthful Cookery
During the last seven months we have been at home but about four
weeks. In our travels we have sat at many different tables, from Iowa
to Maine. Some whom we have visited live up to the best light they
have. Others, who have the same opportunities of learning to live
healthfully and well, have hardly taken the first steps in reform. They
will tell you that they do not know how to cook in this new way. But
they are without excuse in this matter of cooking; for in the work, How
to Live, are many excellent recipes, and this work is within the reach
of all. I do not say that the system of cookery taught in that book is
perfect. I may soon furnish a small work more to my mind in some
respects. But How to Live teaches cookery almost infinitely in advance
of what the traveler will often meet, even among some Seventh-day
Adventists.
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Many do not feel that this is a matter of duty, hence they do not
try to prepare food properly. This can be done in a simple, healthful,
and easy manner, without the use of lard, butter, or flesh meats. Skill
must be united with simplicity. To do this, women must read, and
then patiently reduce what they read to practice. Many are suffering
because they will not take the trouble to do this. I say to such: It is
time for you to rouse your dormant energies and read up. Learn how to
cook with simplicity, and yet in a manner to secure the most palatable
and healthful food.
Because it is wrong to cook merely to please the taste, or to suit
the appetite, no one should entertain the idea that an impoverished
diet is right. Many are debilitated with disease, and need a nourishing,
plentiful, well-cooked diet. We frequently find graham bread heavy,
sour, and but partially baked. This is for want of interest to learn, and
care to perform, the important duty of cook. Sometimes we find gem
cakes, or soft biscuit, dried, not baked, and other things after the same
order. And then cooks will tell you they can do very well in the old
style of cooking, but, to tell the truth, their families do not like graham
bread; that they would starve to live in this way.
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