Healthful Cookery
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wife and mother who has not had the right education and lacks skill in
the cooking department is daily presenting her family with ill-prepared
food which is steadily and surely destroying the digestive organs, mak-
ing a poor quality of blood, and frequently bringing on acute attacks of
inflammatory disease and causing premature death. Many have been
brought to their death by eating heavy, sour bread. An instance was
related to me of a hired girl who made a batch of sour, heavy bread. In
order to get rid of it and conceal the matter, she threw it to a couple of
very large hogs. Next morning the man of the house found his swine
dead, and, upon examining the trough, found pieces of this heavy
bread. He made inquiries, and the girl acknowledged what she had
done. She had not a thought of the effect of such bread upon the swine.
If heavy, sour bread will kill swine, which can devour rattlesnakes and
almost every detestable thing, what effect will it have upon that tender
organ, the human stomach?
It is a religious duty for every Christian girl and woman to learn
at once to make good, sweet, light bread from unbolted wheat flour.
Mothers should take their daughters into the kitchen with them when
very young and teach them the art of cooking. The mother cannot
expect her daughters to understand the mysteries of housekeeping
without education. She should instruct them patiently, lovingly, and
make the work as agreeable as she can by her cheerful countenance
and encouraging words of approval. If they fail once, twice, or thrice,
censure not. Already discouragement is doing its work and tempting
them to say: “It is of no use; I can’t do it.” This is not the time for
censure. The will is becoming weakened. It needs the spur of encour-
aging, cheerful, hopeful words, as: “Never mind the mistakes you have
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made. You are but a learner and must expect to make blunders. Try
again. Put your mind on what you are doing. Be very careful, and you
will certainly succeed.”
Many mothers do not realize the importance of this branch of
knowledge, and rather than have the trouble and care of instructing
their children and bearing with their failings and errors while learning,
they prefer to do all themselves. And when their daughters make a
failure in their efforts, they send them away with: “It is no use; you
can’t do this or that. You perplex and trouble me more than you help
me.”