MAN has been justly defined a cooking animal ; and though his full
definition is to be taken from something different and higher, yet
assuredly he is the one only cooking animal in nature. He can in
his lowest condition devour raw blubber, or maintain a stunted
and pinched existence on the undressed fruits of the earth and on
crawling insects, from which civilized man turns with abhorrence.
And even the most pampered child of civilization and luxury, when
pressed by the famine of shipwreck, or that which the desolation
of war or pestilence occasions, can fall back upon the lowest capaci-
ties of his animal nature, and live for a season on such uncooked
mockeries of food as shoe-leather and sawdust-bread, which the
dainty Eskimo, fresh from his draught of whale-oil, and the Bush-
man, surfeited with locusts, would turn from with contempt.
But man is never, when he is free to choose, a willing eater of
uncooked food. The more grateful fruits, indeed, which have been
cultivated into richness by a process as elaborate and much more
protracted than any which Cookery prescribes, are welcome to the
most luxurious in their simplest condition ; but they form a very
small portion of the food by which the bulk, strength, and living
energy of the frame are sustained. And even in those favoured
regions of the globe where the cocoa-nut, the bread-fruit, and the
banana grow together, and appear to exempt man from the neces-
sity of doing more than plucking and eating, he is found roasting
his bread-fruit, fermenting his cocoa-milk into spirit, and holding
his fast-days and his feast-days as faithfully as if he had a lettered
rubric to guide him. In truth, as the oldest of crafts was that of
the gardener, or tiller of fields, so next to him come the women
grinding at the mill, who figure in the most ancient historical
XXVI PHILOSOPHY OF COOKERY.
records which sacred or profane literature has handed down to
us ; and as beyond the garden and tilled field the most famous of
world-old workers was the hunter, so, awaiting his return from the
chase, we find in constant alliance, all the earth over, the humble
potter, whose broken cooking-vessels now encumber the sites of
cities to which, four thousand or more years ago, forgotten Nim-
rods brought back the spoils of the spear and the bow.
The art of Cookery, as practised in modern times, is based, like
all the other economical arts (though generally incognizant of the
fact), on certain great laws of science, of which parts have been
unsystematically and empirically applied to the arts in question.
The profession of cook is one which, unreasonably enough, we are
ready to profit by, but not disposed to honour greatly. Yet the
most learned physicians and the most skilled chemists are ready to
tell us that the ministers of the kitchen display (often no doubt
unconsciously), in their processes and the results of these, a know-
ledge of the necessities and functions of the living body, and a
command over the resources of practical chemistry, such as excite
their interest and admiration.
Page 3
Presented as published in 1886. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
MAN has been justly defined a cooking animal ; and though his full definition is to be taken from something different and higher, yet assuredly he is the one only cooking animal in nature. He can in his lowest condition devour raw blubber, or maintain a stunted and pinched existence on the undressed fruits of the earth and on crawling insects, from which civilized man turns with abhorrence. And even the most pampered child of civilization and luxury, when pressed by the famine of shipwreck, or that which the desolation of war or pestilence occasions, can fall back upon the lowest capacities of his animal nature, and live for a season on such uncooked mockeries of food as shoe-leather and sawdust-bread, which the dainty Eskimo, fresh from his draught of whale-oil, and the Bushman, surfeited with locusts, would turn from with contempt.
But man is never, when he is free to choose, a willing eater of uncooked food. The more grateful fruits, indeed, which have been cultivated into richness by a process as elaborate and much more protracted than any which Cookery prescribes, are welcome to the most luxurious in their simplest condition ; but they form a very small portion of the food by which the bulk, strength, and living energy of the frame are sustained. And even in those favoured regions of the globe where the cocoa-nut, the bread-fruit, and the banana grow together, and appear to exempt man from the necessity of doing more than plucking and eating, he is found roasting his bread-fruit, fermenting his cocoa-milk into spirit, and holding his fast-days and his feast-days as faithfully as if he had a lettered rubric to guide him. In truth, as the oldest of crafts was that of the gardener, or tiller of fields, so next to him come the women grinding at the mill, who figure in the most ancient historical
XXVI PHILOSOPHY OF COOKERY.
records which sacred or profane literature has handed down to us ; and as beyond the garden and tilled field the most famous of world-old workers was the hunter, so, awaiting his return from the chase, we find in constant alliance, all the earth over, the humble potter, whose broken cooking-vessels now encumber the sites of cities to which, four thousand or more years ago, forgotten Nimrods brought back the spoils of the spear and the bow.
The art of Cookery, as practised in modern times, is based, like all the other economical arts (though generally incognizant of the fact), on certain great laws of science, of which parts have been unsystematically and empirically applied to the arts in question. The profession of cook is one which, unreasonably enough, we are ready to profit by, but not disposed to honour greatly. Yet the most learned physicians and the most skilled chemists are ready to tell us that the ministers of the kitchen display (often no doubt unconsciously), in their processes and the results of these, a knowledge of the necessities and functions of the living body, and a command over the resources of practical chemistry, such as excite their interest and admiration.