ders. Nor do I intend in these pages to teach the fundamental prin- ciples of cookery. I assume that the cook in whose hands I earnestly hope that very many ladies will place this book has learned the rudiments, and is able to use the minor arts, of her trade — that she knows how to roast, boil, fry, stew, and bake. I have not hesitated, therefore, to leave to her knowledge and judgment things which I should have had to set out in detail if I had been writing a treatise on the elements of the culinary art. It is true that now and again I have given some simple hints with regard to braising, since that is a process only imperfectly understood by the majority of English cooks, and not half so much used by them as it should be. My second object has been to make " The Thorough Good Cook" as cosmojDolitan as I possibly could, though TO THE GENERAL READER. y\\ without attaching to avowedly foreign dishes more or less unpronounceable titles. I have seen and tried the cookery of every country in the civilised world — from that which has furnished forth the tables of princes down to that which has formed the fare of peasants and mechanics ; and I do not know any foreign kitchen from which I have not been able to learn something, and m which I have not found dishes easily adaptable to English tastes. Scores of dishes, indeed, which we fondly imagine to be exclusively English have their counterparts in the cuisines not only of France but of Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, and even Greece and Turke}^ That we, on the other hand, have a national English school of cookery is to me as indubitable as that we have a national school of painting ; and I main- tain that our cuisine contains many excellent dishes, as wholesome as they are succulent, among which I hasten to cite turtle and mock-turtle soup, boiled leg of mutton and caper sauce, grilled fowl and mushrooms, Irish stew, beefsteak pie and pudding, Scotch kale and coUops, lark and quail puddings, pickled salmon, soused mackerel, tripe and onions, ox-tail soup, liver and bacon, roast saddle of mutton, roast sirloin of beef, and plum pudding — which last dainty, if the directions I have given are foUoAved, need not be in the least indigestible. We have, besides, the finest butcher's meat and nearly the finest game in the whole world ; although France and the United States beat us in the way of poultry. Finally, our Imperial mastery of India has added to the English kitchen a large number of splendid curries ; and I seriously contend that a well-prepared curry is not only delicious to the taste but is also in most cases a salutary stomachic. The trouble is that, although we have plenty of good English dishes, not one cook in twenty knows how to prepare, artistically, edibles for the table, and that not one cook in a hundred has the faintest idea how even the simplest of curries should be composed. ^111 TEE TROEOUGH GOOD COOK.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

ders. Nor do I intend in these pages to teach the fundamental principles of cookery. I assume that the cook in whose hands I earnestly hope that very many ladies will place this book has learned the rudiments, and is able to use the minor arts, of her trade — that she knows how to roast, boil, fry, stew, and bake. I have not hesitated, therefore, to leave to her knowledge and judgment things which I should have had to set out in detail if I had been writing a treatise on the elements of the culinary art. It is true that now and again I have given some simple hints with regard to braising, since that is a process only imperfectly understood by the majority of English cooks, and not half so much used by them as it should be. My second object has been to make "The Thorough Good Cook" as cosmopolitan as I possibly could, though TO THE GENERAL READER. y\\ without attaching to avowedly foreign dishes more or less unpronounceable titles. I have seen and tried the cookery of every country in the civilised world — from that which has furnished forth the tables of princes down to that which has formed the fare of peasants and mechanics ; and I do not know any foreign kitchen from which I have not been able to learn something, and m which I have not found dishes easily adaptable to English tastes. Scores of dishes, indeed, which we fondly imagine to be exclusively English have their counterparts in the cuisines not only of France but of Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, and even Greece and Turkey. That we, on the other hand, have a national English school of cookery is to me as indubitable as that we have a national school of painting ; and I maintain that our cuisine contains many excellent dishes, as wholesome as they are succulent, among which I hasten to cite turtle and mock-turtle soup, boiled leg of mutton and caper sauce, grilled fowl and mushrooms, Irish stew, beefsteak pie and pudding, Scotch kale and coUops, lark and quail puddings, pickled salmon, soused mackerel, tripe and onions, ox-tail soup, liver and bacon, roast saddle of mutton, roast sirloin of beef, and plum pudding — which last dainty, if the directions I have given are followed, need not be in the least indigestible. We have, besides, the finest butcher's meat and nearly the finest game in the whole world ; although France and the United States beat us in the way of poultry. Finally, our Imperial mastery of India has added to the English kitchen a large number of splendid curries ; and I seriously contend that a well-prepared curry is not only delicious to the taste but is also in most cases a salutary stomachic. The trouble is that, although we have plenty of good English dishes, not one cook in twenty knows how to prepare, artistically, edibles for the table, and that not one cook in a hundred has the faintest idea how even the simplest of curries should be composed.

The thorough good cook