I'm not convinced the final paragraph isn't trolling, Medicus.
To look her best is the desire of every young girl, but I will even go a little farther and say that not only is it her desire, but it is also her duty, for the sake of those around her. TO enable her to do this in a natural way, I am going to place at the disposal of the young reader of THE GIRL'S OWN PAPER, some of the fruits of experience, and give advice which, if followed, can only result in good. In some future papers I hope to have something to say about the hair, as well as the hands and the feet. In this I will confine myself as much as possible, to a friendly chat about the face and the complexion. And first and foremost, it will do no harm if I introduce here just a tiny wee morsel of physiology. I know there is a disagreeable schoolroom sound about the word "physiology" and so there is about all "ologies" and "graphies" too for the matter of that; but the lesson I want you to learn is a very short and an exceedingly useful one. It is just a word or two about the skin. Nature formed the skin not merely for a protective covering for the face and body - though, to be sure, that is one of its uses - for it has a great many others besides, and, taking it all in all, it is one of the most important organs of the body. There are millions and millions of what are called pores spread over its surface, and from these are constantly passing off in a manner insensible to us what, if retained in the blood, would tend to make us sick and ill and shorten our lives on earth. If the skin be not kept in a state of purity and activity we cannot enjoy either health or happiness.
The skin of the face being more exposed to sun and rain, as well as to dust and smoke, is more liable to suffer than that even of the hands, and consequently requires far greater care and attention. The signs of health, as depicted in the face of a young girl, are many. The skin should be pure, soft and transparent - what is generally called a clear complexion. It ought to be white on brow and nose and chin, and smooth around the eyes, while the blood should mantle in the cheeks in the tenderest of rosy tints -at times rivalling in beauty the delicate hues of some lovely sea-shells. The eyes ought to be rather full, and tender and bright, the white portion showing no tendency to be either yellow or red; the eyelashes should be soft and long, and the teeth of absolute whiteness. But ah! I am sorry to say that it is too much the fashion of the day to attempt to gain the healthy complexion I am trying to describe, in quite a wrong way. Too much artificiality is had recourse to. I do not mean in the matter of powders or rouge - very young girls do not require such aids to beauty, but in the use of many advertised lotions and nostrums, most of which had better be done without, and many of which are positively hurtful. It cannot be too generally known that although application to the face are oftentimes necessary, beauty and clearness of complexion cannot be maintained by their use alone.
Now roughness of the skin and a sallow, pale, or pasty appearance are, in nine cases out of ten, the results of impurity of blood, and, again, in five cases at least out of ten, this impurity of blood is caused by errors in diet. Few girls, indeed, have the slightest notion of how intimate is the connection between personal appearance and a good digestion. The errors in diet I refer to are more particularly intemperance in eating, eating between meals, eating too freely of fruits, pastry and sweets - things that are only good in moderation - eating hurriedly, and, I may add, taking wine or malt liquors, neither of which young girls ought to touch, unless commanded to do so by their family physicians.
Eating injudiciously acts injuriously upon the complexion in more ways than one; it may heat the blood to an almost feverish extent, causing flushing of the face, and that in itself may mean very serious injury to the skin, through the distention of the small blood-vessels therein, and consequent weakening of its nerves. Again, the stomach becomes deranged through the same causes, not probably to say very great extent, a feeling of languor being more often present than actual pain or uneasiness, but just sufficiently so to have an action for evil on the liver.
Now the function of this latter organ being to eliminate or release bile from the blood, and bile, if circulating in the veins, being a poison, it can at once be seen that little attacks of indigestion, especially if of frequent occurrence, can be highly inimical to the complexion. If you wish then to retain your youth and beauty, be most careful how you eat and drink, for there is nothing that will age one sooner than errors in diet.
Plenty of healthful exercise in the open air tends greatly to purify the blood and render the complexion delightfully clear; it also keeps the pores of the skin open, and prevents the formation of those nasty little black ticks that are so disfiguring to the face of a young girl. Remember that these can always be more easily prevented than cured, and that when they are numerous, although they may be squeezed out, they actually leave small pits behind them and a disagreeably roughened appearance of the skin. I shall have to speak more particularly about exercise another day, but here just let me give a hint or two. The time for taking it is before and not after meals; it should be moderate to be beneficial - that is, it should not be carried to the verge of fatigue. At the same time I advocate for young girls a little running and leaping, and even occasional gymnastics, for all these tend to spread a healthful bloom on the cheeks and render the skin soft and pliant. But pray remember this, no exercise of the nature of a task, no exercise that you do not thoroughly enjoy, no exercise that does not make the time fly as if it had the wings of a swallow, can do much real good.
Observe, too, that I said the exercise should be taken in the open air. Oh! If my young readers only knew the healthful beautifying effect of pure fresh air, they would hardly ever be within doors unless by compulsion. Every hour spent in the open air goes so far to keep a girl young and lovely and every hour spent in a dull, stuffy room goes to age her and render her complexion sallow. Badly ventilated bed-rooms are terrible enemies to good looks, and they are all the more so in that one is really more apt to sleep longer in them. The air being dull and heavy causes drowsiness, but the sleep is not of a sweetly refreshing kind, and you do not wake from it happy and gay and light-hearted as you ought to - as the birds do, ready to burst into song the moment they open their eyes. In the summer months the windows ought to be open all night. If you try the effects of this for one night only you will be astonished, and not like to have them closed again. Of course you must take care of catching cold, for no one should sleep in a draught. A young girl should have eight hours' sound sleep, but not more. If she has more it is not really proper sleep, and I'll tell you what often occurs. She awakes in the morning slightly puffy about the eyes and eye-lids; this may not hurt for once in a way, it may not hurt for fifty times, but who is me! I know it ends in early wrinkles and crow's-feet, and a consequent banishing of youth and beauty long before its time.
I must now say a word about water and ablution. A well-known living authority makes the following wise remark. "Water," he says, "the medium of ablution, hardly receives a just appreciation at our hands. It is the most grateful, the most necessary, and the most universal of the gifts of a wise Creator."
Now, if you would live long and still retain your youth, if you would look your best, and have both health and beauty in abundance, I pray you look upon pure water as not only a faithful servant, but a kind friend. Happy is the girl, I say, who can take and enjoy a bath in pure cold, soft water every day of her life. She ought to be as plump and pretty as a partridge, and as fresh and "caller" as a little trout. Well, but if you are not strong enough to have a bath every morning, an occasional tepid bath in the evening, with plenty of mild soap, will do a great deal of good to the whole system, and the face and hands ought to be washed and sponged several times in the day. And here is something that ought not to be forgotten - never, if you can help it, wash in hard water, for water that curdles the soap will, so to speak, curdle the complexion. Procure rain or the softest of river water for the hands and face, even if you have to send for it in bottles. I can assure you that many a fair face is ruined, so far as beauty goes, by the use of hard water.
And talking of the benefits of ablution, I shall do good service if I call attention to two mistakes that are commonly made. One is the use of bad soap; that is, soap which contains too much alkali. Avoid coloured and over-scented soaps. Another mistake is the use of too rough a towel, and this rough towel, I am sorry to say, is often recommended by people who know no better. A moderate degree of friction is all very well, but, dear me, you do not need to rub your pretty skin off. I repeat, then, rain or river water, neither warm nor too cold, good soap, and gentle friction; so shall you avoid a roughened or irritable skin and chaps on lips or fingers.
I must now touch on a delicate subject - medical men must at times, and this is nothing very dreadful after all; but young girls, on looking into the glass, are sometimes startled by seeing a slight wavy down on the corners of the upper lip. Let it alone - think nothing of it. In ninety cases out of a hundred it decreases with mature years, but interference is in all cases dangerous and injurious.
I have now shown you that sallowness or pastiness of complexion is caused by impurity of blood, and can only be removed by proper diet, exercise, pure air, proper ablution, and healthful sleep. These will remove it, but, mark me, no application to the face will or can. Medicines, however, often do good, but as I do not believe in young ladies taking much to drugs, I shall only mention one or two that greatly help to beautify and clear the complexion. If, then, the appetite is not what it ought to be, from half to a whole teaspoonful of quinine wine should be taken three times a day. If there be weakness and paleness of the face and gums, nothing is simpler, better, or more elegant than the common citrate of iron and quinine mixture, which any chemist can compound you, and tell you the dose according to your age. If the flesh is not so firm and plump as it ought to be, I commend to you the use of cod-liver oil. Yes, I admit it is nasty at first, but one in this world must oftentimes bear present pain for future profit. An occasional chamomile pill is most innocent medicine, yet it helps to keep both stomach and liver right, and it clears the eyes and complexion.
Pimples on the face and brow are not, as a rule, to be cured by applications, but by attention to the laws of health, to regularity of diet, exercise and ablution; but here is a small lotion which may be of use, and which may be compounded by any chemist. It is two ounces of the best eau-de-cologne, with about a grain of corrosive sublimate dissolved in it. It will be labelled POISON. The tender parts of the face are simply wetted with it three or four times a day. A far better and not dangerous preparation for redness, sun-browning, or tenderness of any kind about the face, is rose glycerine. NO toilet table should be without this little elegancy.
In summer, young girls who wish to look their best should always after washing bathe the face with a soft sponge and soft water without a particle of soap. Sun-burning may be removed by a weak decoction of goulard water, or by applying buttermilk to the face before going to bed. This last application, I admit, is not very elegant, but it is very useful.
But probably the most harmless of all cosmetics, and certainly the best, is wetting the face with May-dew - I'm not joking, gentle reader - and if you have to get up quite early in the morning to go and look for it, and have to walk a mile or two before you find any, all the better.
Showing posts with label diet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diet. Show all posts
Friday, 18 March 2016
Friday, 1 January 2016
13 March 1886 - 'Omelettes, and How to Make Them' by Phillis Browne
In the life of a great Englishwoman, just published, her biographer says that "she was an excellent housekeeper, and her excellence was partly attained from knowing how things ought to be done". There is a great deal of truth in this remark. People who know how things ought to be, how they look when they are right, have a great advantage over people who simply make a guess, and try to imagine after having the process of manufacture described, though they have never actually seen what the result is. This is particularly the case with omelettes. For years authorities in cookery have been telling us that omelettes are delicious, inexpensive, elegant and wholesome; indeed, that they supply one of the most wholesome ways of cooking eggs; that French people use them every day, and never tire of them; that the varieties are endless; that if you can make one sort you can make fifty; that though a certain knack is required in making them, and though failure in them is much more frequent than success, yet that they are very easily made; that they are most convenient preparations, because they can be so quickly prepared (indeed they must be quickly prepared if they are to be good, and it has been said that an omelette should not only be made, but should be eaten also, in the space of three minutes).
All these assertions are true, and yet omelettes are not at all common in England. English cooks seem afraid of them. I was much astonished the other day to hear a lady, who is, I know, exceedingly clever in cookery, and whom I have for years been accustomed to regard as an oracle, say, "We had company the other day, and I hired a French cook to prepare dinner for us. He proved to be so obliging that I asked him to teach me how to make omelettes, and he did so. I was surprised to find how easy they are. I shall never be afraid of them again." I should have soon have suspected this lady of being afraid of boiling an egg as of making an omelette. I feel sure that the timidity so frequently felt about preparing omelettes arises from the fact that few English cooks have seen them when properly made.
It is impossible for me in writing about omelettes to give the girls of our cookery class a sight of one. Al I can do in this direction is to address them to be on the look-out, and to take advantage of any opportunity that may arise in this direction. If they know a clever cook, ask her to make an omelette for them, or if there should be any cookery class held where omelettes are prepared, let them attend the lesson and learn for themselves. Or, of occasions of this kind should be quite out of reach, let them try to make an omelette once or twice, from the directions I am now about to give. It is quite possible that they will make one or two failures, but I should say also that it is almost certain there would be ultimate success, and if once they saw an omelette as it should be they would never mistake it for the future.
In this case they would find it best to make a small omelette to begin with, so that there need not be much waste if there were failure. Indeed, small omelettes are so much more easily made that large ones, that it is always well for beginners to commence with one or two eggs only. The French generally allow two eggs for each person, and these would be quite enough to experiment on. On this account the pan used should not be too large, because the eggs are not supposed to spread all over the pan as they do in a pancake; they are intended to be kept together and to form a thick, light oval-shaped cushion, the size and shape of half the pan. For three or even four eggs, therefore, the omelette pan should not be more than six inches in diameter, while for two eggs a still smaller pan will be sufficient. These small pans are now sold of different sizes at every ironmonger's, and they cost only a few pence. Indeed, they are offered for sale so much more frequently than they once were, that one cannot help thinking that the making of omelettes is better understood among us than it used to be.
A very important detail concerning these omelette pans is that they must be kept for omelettes only; indeed, it is almost impossible to make an omelette satisfactorily in a pan which has been used for all sorts of things. One reason for this is that an omelette pan should never be washed; it should simply be wiped dry. If it is washed, the next omelette fried in it will stick, and it is a great point in making omelettes to keep them from sticking. If through accident or forgetfulness the pan should have been washed, or even if a new pan is to be used, it must be doctored by leaving a little fat, made exceedingly hot, in it, then pouring this away, and wiping the pan out quickly and briskly with paper until it is clean and bright. Omelette pans are made of copper, enamelled iron, tin, and earthenware, and they should be shallow and round, as well as small. Above all things, they must be perfectly clean from rust and dirt. Experienced omelette makers generally, I think, become attached to one particular pan, and prefer using it to any other. I suppose the explanation is that they have used this same pan successfully a few times, and get into the way of associating it with their success. I expect that their fancy leads them to take care of it, and thus it is kept in good condition.
Strictly speaking, a plain omelette ought to consist of nothing but eggs and flavouring. This flavouring may be varied indefinitely, all sorts of suitable ingredients being added, provided only that they are cooked or else need no cooking, for it cannot be expected that in the short time the eggs take to cook more solid food will be rendered eatable. Thus, when meat, such as game, bacon, kidneys, or fish are added to omelettes, the meat should be cooked separately, chopped small, then introduced deftly into the centre of the omelette, and covered with the egg, or else it should be mixed with the beaten eggs before cooking. Of course, the omelette is then named after the distinguishing addition. Thus when it is said that fifty varieties of omelettes are made, nothing more is meant than that fifty different additions may be put with the eggs. Thus we have asparagus omelette, bacon omelette, green pea omelette, kidney, lobster, mushroom, oyster, tomato omelettes, and many other sorts. Omelette aux fine herbes is omelette to which minced herbs, and perhaps a suspicion of finely-chopped shalot, has been added; omelette aux confitures is omelette with jam; omelette au natural is nothing but plain omelette; omelette au rhum is made by mixing a glass of rum with the eggs, then sprinkling sugar on the dish, and at the moment of serving pouring a glass of rum over and setting on fire, as brandy is set on fire for Christmas pudding. This is considered a very superior dish.
M. Gouffe, who as everyone knows, is a great authority in cooking, advises that the eggs in omelettes should not e over-beaten. He says that by doing nothing is gained, and that the omelette is rendered watery. Other authorities, equally deserving of honour, say that the eggs should be well beaten, as this is especially needed to make the omelette light. I recommend girls not to overbeat certainly, but at any rate to beat the yolks and the whites together lightly, so that they may be thoroughly mixed before being turned into the pan. A mistake which English cooks frequently make is to cook the omelette overmuch. When properly done, the inside is quite soft and almost liquid, while the outside is firm enough to hold it together and keep it compact. An omelette must on no account be left standing in the dish after it is ready, but must be eaten immediately. No matter how light it is when finished, it will be heavy when cold.
We will suppose now that we are going to make a small omelette with two or three eggs. First, we must remember to have everything ready to our hand. If we get half through the business and then have to run off to fetch a knife, a spoon, or a dish, we are certain to come to grief; indeed, the dish which is to receive it should be very hot. Break two or three eggs into a basin, beat them lightly with a fork, and put with them some sugar and any suitable flavouring. Essence of vanilla is very good. Melt an ounce of butter in the omelette pan. When it is very hot, so that it froths all over, put in the eggs, and with a spoon or fork work the mixture lightly from the sides, mixing in the butter while so doing, and be very careful not to let the eggs stick to the pan. Do not, however, continue stirring until the mixture is solid all the way through, but stop while it is still a little liquid. It may be finished in two ways. One is to tilt the handle of the omelette pan upwards, so as to let the egg slide downwards to the lower half of the pan, and away from the hottest part of the fire. As it goes, scrape it away so as to keep it together. Let it cook for a second or two, then tilt the pan the other way, and with a spoon roll the omelette over to the other end. Keep it together, because it ought to be thick, and as soon as it is set slide it upon a dish, sift sugar over it, and serve. The other way of finishing it is to fold it over something like a turnover when it is half set to make the proper oval shape.
This sounds simple enough, does it not? So it is when you get to know how to do it but, like many other simple things, it wants practice. It is quite an accomplishment to make an omelette properly. I often think that describing cookery is like describing how scales should be played. We might say that in going down the scale you should first play with the five fingers, then pass the second finger over the thumb, and afterwards the third finger. This sounds easy, but what a bungle those make of it who are not accustomed to the business. They twist their fingers up, and jerk their elbows out most awkwardly, while those who have practice glide smoothly up and down in most elegant fashion. So with cookery, practice is what is wanted to make perfect. The most elaborate instruction might be given, and yet the novice would come upon some little detail concerning which she was bewildered. Try again and again, if scrape it away so as to keep it together. Let it cook for a second or two, then tilt the pan the other way, and with a spoon roll the omelette over to the other end. Keep it together, because it ought to be thick, and as soon as it is set slide it upon a dish, sift sugar over it, and serve. The other way of finishing it is to fold it over something like a turnover when it is half set to make the proper oval shape.
This sounds simple enough, does it not? So it is when you get to know how to do it but, like many other simple things, it wants practice. It is quite an accomplishment to make an omelette properly. I often think that describing cookery is like describing how scales should be played. We might say that in going down the scale you should first play with the five fingers, then pass the second finger over the thumb, and afterwards the third finger. This sounds easy, but what a bungle those make of it who are not accustomed to the business. They twist their fingers up, and jerk their elbows out most awkwardly, while those who have practice glide smoothly up and down in most elegant fashion. So with cookery, practice is what is wanted to make perfect. The most elaborate instruction might be given, and yet the novice would come upon some little detail concerning which she was bewildered. Try again and again, if necessary; that is the best way of learning; the road to success lies through failure. And, as I said before, remember what you are aiming at - to produce a thick, soft, golden-coloured, oval-shaped mass, which, when cut into, shall look more like cooked custard than anything else I think of, shall e liquid in the centre and firm on the outside. And as the most usual mistake made in cooking an omelette is that it is too hard, err on the side of tiling up the pan too soon rather than too late, and above all things be expeditious.
Some people put a little milk into an omelette. The effect of this is to make it less rich, and although in a perfectly correct omelette I suppose this is not admissible, yet, on the whole, I do not think the addition is to be objected to, because a frequent objection made to omelettes is that they are too rich. A dessert-spoonful or a table-spoonful of milk to each egg will probably be considered sufficient.
When after persevering attempts an omelette has been made properly with two or three eggs, a large number of eggs may be taken. I do not know however that it is in any case advisable to use more than six eggs. As an authority has declared, the best omelettes are never made with more than six eggs. Also when this skill has been attained, additions and variations can be made to any extent, for it will be understood an omelette may be mixed with almost anything.
An omelette soufflé is a favourite variety of the ordinary omelette. In making this, the whites should be beaten separately until they are very stiff, and added to the well-beaten yolks, so as not to beat down the froth. The omelette will be lighter if more white than yolk may be allowed, although this is by no means indispensable. Dissolve in a saucepan a tablespoonful of sugar and a teaspoonful of orange-flower water, or any other suitable flavouring. Pour the syrup into a cup to cool, then add the yolks of eggs and beat them to a cream; add then the whites, which have been beaten to a stiff froth. Melt a piece of butter the size of a nut in an omelette pan; when this is hot pour in the mixture; put the pan over a gentle fire for a couple of minutes, just to set the bottom of the omelette; then put the pan into a very hot oven and bake it until it rises high. Slip it on a hot plate, put some jam or sugar on it, turn it over like a sandwich, and serve instantly. In an oven which is so hot underneath that the eggs will set at the bottom, there is no need to put the omelette on the fire. It may simply be put in the oven for five minutes, and it must not be left after it has risen, or it will fall again. This is a very easy way of making an omelette.
Another easy way is to beat the eggs with milk, sweeten, and flavour them; butter a frying-pan to prevent sticking, and pour them in as if we intended to make a thick pancake. Let the preparation set, and then roll it up. A third easy way is the following: - soak the crumb of a slice of stale bread taken from an ordinary loaf in as much milk as it will absorb. Pour off any milk that is over, and beat the bread to a paste with a fork, adding a little sugar or salt and the yolks of four eggs. Make a slice of butter hot in the pa. Have ready the whites of the eggs beaten to a solid froth, mix these with the rest; pour the mixture into the pan, and move it about for a minute. When the preparation is set at the bottom, put it into a very hot oven for five minutes, or until it is firm on the top, then fold it over and serve.
Sometimes with savoury omelettes, or with omelettes mixed with meat or fish, gravy is served. This should never be poured over the omelette; it should be sent to table separately. The gravy for omelettes is usually thickened with arrowroot or cornflour.
All these assertions are true, and yet omelettes are not at all common in England. English cooks seem afraid of them. I was much astonished the other day to hear a lady, who is, I know, exceedingly clever in cookery, and whom I have for years been accustomed to regard as an oracle, say, "We had company the other day, and I hired a French cook to prepare dinner for us. He proved to be so obliging that I asked him to teach me how to make omelettes, and he did so. I was surprised to find how easy they are. I shall never be afraid of them again." I should have soon have suspected this lady of being afraid of boiling an egg as of making an omelette. I feel sure that the timidity so frequently felt about preparing omelettes arises from the fact that few English cooks have seen them when properly made.
It is impossible for me in writing about omelettes to give the girls of our cookery class a sight of one. Al I can do in this direction is to address them to be on the look-out, and to take advantage of any opportunity that may arise in this direction. If they know a clever cook, ask her to make an omelette for them, or if there should be any cookery class held where omelettes are prepared, let them attend the lesson and learn for themselves. Or, of occasions of this kind should be quite out of reach, let them try to make an omelette once or twice, from the directions I am now about to give. It is quite possible that they will make one or two failures, but I should say also that it is almost certain there would be ultimate success, and if once they saw an omelette as it should be they would never mistake it for the future.
In this case they would find it best to make a small omelette to begin with, so that there need not be much waste if there were failure. Indeed, small omelettes are so much more easily made that large ones, that it is always well for beginners to commence with one or two eggs only. The French generally allow two eggs for each person, and these would be quite enough to experiment on. On this account the pan used should not be too large, because the eggs are not supposed to spread all over the pan as they do in a pancake; they are intended to be kept together and to form a thick, light oval-shaped cushion, the size and shape of half the pan. For three or even four eggs, therefore, the omelette pan should not be more than six inches in diameter, while for two eggs a still smaller pan will be sufficient. These small pans are now sold of different sizes at every ironmonger's, and they cost only a few pence. Indeed, they are offered for sale so much more frequently than they once were, that one cannot help thinking that the making of omelettes is better understood among us than it used to be.
A very important detail concerning these omelette pans is that they must be kept for omelettes only; indeed, it is almost impossible to make an omelette satisfactorily in a pan which has been used for all sorts of things. One reason for this is that an omelette pan should never be washed; it should simply be wiped dry. If it is washed, the next omelette fried in it will stick, and it is a great point in making omelettes to keep them from sticking. If through accident or forgetfulness the pan should have been washed, or even if a new pan is to be used, it must be doctored by leaving a little fat, made exceedingly hot, in it, then pouring this away, and wiping the pan out quickly and briskly with paper until it is clean and bright. Omelette pans are made of copper, enamelled iron, tin, and earthenware, and they should be shallow and round, as well as small. Above all things, they must be perfectly clean from rust and dirt. Experienced omelette makers generally, I think, become attached to one particular pan, and prefer using it to any other. I suppose the explanation is that they have used this same pan successfully a few times, and get into the way of associating it with their success. I expect that their fancy leads them to take care of it, and thus it is kept in good condition.
Strictly speaking, a plain omelette ought to consist of nothing but eggs and flavouring. This flavouring may be varied indefinitely, all sorts of suitable ingredients being added, provided only that they are cooked or else need no cooking, for it cannot be expected that in the short time the eggs take to cook more solid food will be rendered eatable. Thus, when meat, such as game, bacon, kidneys, or fish are added to omelettes, the meat should be cooked separately, chopped small, then introduced deftly into the centre of the omelette, and covered with the egg, or else it should be mixed with the beaten eggs before cooking. Of course, the omelette is then named after the distinguishing addition. Thus when it is said that fifty varieties of omelettes are made, nothing more is meant than that fifty different additions may be put with the eggs. Thus we have asparagus omelette, bacon omelette, green pea omelette, kidney, lobster, mushroom, oyster, tomato omelettes, and many other sorts. Omelette aux fine herbes is omelette to which minced herbs, and perhaps a suspicion of finely-chopped shalot, has been added; omelette aux confitures is omelette with jam; omelette au natural is nothing but plain omelette; omelette au rhum is made by mixing a glass of rum with the eggs, then sprinkling sugar on the dish, and at the moment of serving pouring a glass of rum over and setting on fire, as brandy is set on fire for Christmas pudding. This is considered a very superior dish.
M. Gouffe, who as everyone knows, is a great authority in cooking, advises that the eggs in omelettes should not e over-beaten. He says that by doing nothing is gained, and that the omelette is rendered watery. Other authorities, equally deserving of honour, say that the eggs should be well beaten, as this is especially needed to make the omelette light. I recommend girls not to overbeat certainly, but at any rate to beat the yolks and the whites together lightly, so that they may be thoroughly mixed before being turned into the pan. A mistake which English cooks frequently make is to cook the omelette overmuch. When properly done, the inside is quite soft and almost liquid, while the outside is firm enough to hold it together and keep it compact. An omelette must on no account be left standing in the dish after it is ready, but must be eaten immediately. No matter how light it is when finished, it will be heavy when cold.
We will suppose now that we are going to make a small omelette with two or three eggs. First, we must remember to have everything ready to our hand. If we get half through the business and then have to run off to fetch a knife, a spoon, or a dish, we are certain to come to grief; indeed, the dish which is to receive it should be very hot. Break two or three eggs into a basin, beat them lightly with a fork, and put with them some sugar and any suitable flavouring. Essence of vanilla is very good. Melt an ounce of butter in the omelette pan. When it is very hot, so that it froths all over, put in the eggs, and with a spoon or fork work the mixture lightly from the sides, mixing in the butter while so doing, and be very careful not to let the eggs stick to the pan. Do not, however, continue stirring until the mixture is solid all the way through, but stop while it is still a little liquid. It may be finished in two ways. One is to tilt the handle of the omelette pan upwards, so as to let the egg slide downwards to the lower half of the pan, and away from the hottest part of the fire. As it goes, scrape it away so as to keep it together. Let it cook for a second or two, then tilt the pan the other way, and with a spoon roll the omelette over to the other end. Keep it together, because it ought to be thick, and as soon as it is set slide it upon a dish, sift sugar over it, and serve. The other way of finishing it is to fold it over something like a turnover when it is half set to make the proper oval shape.
This sounds simple enough, does it not? So it is when you get to know how to do it but, like many other simple things, it wants practice. It is quite an accomplishment to make an omelette properly. I often think that describing cookery is like describing how scales should be played. We might say that in going down the scale you should first play with the five fingers, then pass the second finger over the thumb, and afterwards the third finger. This sounds easy, but what a bungle those make of it who are not accustomed to the business. They twist their fingers up, and jerk their elbows out most awkwardly, while those who have practice glide smoothly up and down in most elegant fashion. So with cookery, practice is what is wanted to make perfect. The most elaborate instruction might be given, and yet the novice would come upon some little detail concerning which she was bewildered. Try again and again, if scrape it away so as to keep it together. Let it cook for a second or two, then tilt the pan the other way, and with a spoon roll the omelette over to the other end. Keep it together, because it ought to be thick, and as soon as it is set slide it upon a dish, sift sugar over it, and serve. The other way of finishing it is to fold it over something like a turnover when it is half set to make the proper oval shape.
This sounds simple enough, does it not? So it is when you get to know how to do it but, like many other simple things, it wants practice. It is quite an accomplishment to make an omelette properly. I often think that describing cookery is like describing how scales should be played. We might say that in going down the scale you should first play with the five fingers, then pass the second finger over the thumb, and afterwards the third finger. This sounds easy, but what a bungle those make of it who are not accustomed to the business. They twist their fingers up, and jerk their elbows out most awkwardly, while those who have practice glide smoothly up and down in most elegant fashion. So with cookery, practice is what is wanted to make perfect. The most elaborate instruction might be given, and yet the novice would come upon some little detail concerning which she was bewildered. Try again and again, if necessary; that is the best way of learning; the road to success lies through failure. And, as I said before, remember what you are aiming at - to produce a thick, soft, golden-coloured, oval-shaped mass, which, when cut into, shall look more like cooked custard than anything else I think of, shall e liquid in the centre and firm on the outside. And as the most usual mistake made in cooking an omelette is that it is too hard, err on the side of tiling up the pan too soon rather than too late, and above all things be expeditious.
Some people put a little milk into an omelette. The effect of this is to make it less rich, and although in a perfectly correct omelette I suppose this is not admissible, yet, on the whole, I do not think the addition is to be objected to, because a frequent objection made to omelettes is that they are too rich. A dessert-spoonful or a table-spoonful of milk to each egg will probably be considered sufficient.
When after persevering attempts an omelette has been made properly with two or three eggs, a large number of eggs may be taken. I do not know however that it is in any case advisable to use more than six eggs. As an authority has declared, the best omelettes are never made with more than six eggs. Also when this skill has been attained, additions and variations can be made to any extent, for it will be understood an omelette may be mixed with almost anything.
An omelette soufflé is a favourite variety of the ordinary omelette. In making this, the whites should be beaten separately until they are very stiff, and added to the well-beaten yolks, so as not to beat down the froth. The omelette will be lighter if more white than yolk may be allowed, although this is by no means indispensable. Dissolve in a saucepan a tablespoonful of sugar and a teaspoonful of orange-flower water, or any other suitable flavouring. Pour the syrup into a cup to cool, then add the yolks of eggs and beat them to a cream; add then the whites, which have been beaten to a stiff froth. Melt a piece of butter the size of a nut in an omelette pan; when this is hot pour in the mixture; put the pan over a gentle fire for a couple of minutes, just to set the bottom of the omelette; then put the pan into a very hot oven and bake it until it rises high. Slip it on a hot plate, put some jam or sugar on it, turn it over like a sandwich, and serve instantly. In an oven which is so hot underneath that the eggs will set at the bottom, there is no need to put the omelette on the fire. It may simply be put in the oven for five minutes, and it must not be left after it has risen, or it will fall again. This is a very easy way of making an omelette.
Another easy way is to beat the eggs with milk, sweeten, and flavour them; butter a frying-pan to prevent sticking, and pour them in as if we intended to make a thick pancake. Let the preparation set, and then roll it up. A third easy way is the following: - soak the crumb of a slice of stale bread taken from an ordinary loaf in as much milk as it will absorb. Pour off any milk that is over, and beat the bread to a paste with a fork, adding a little sugar or salt and the yolks of four eggs. Make a slice of butter hot in the pa. Have ready the whites of the eggs beaten to a solid froth, mix these with the rest; pour the mixture into the pan, and move it about for a minute. When the preparation is set at the bottom, put it into a very hot oven for five minutes, or until it is firm on the top, then fold it over and serve.
Sometimes with savoury omelettes, or with omelettes mixed with meat or fish, gravy is served. This should never be poured over the omelette; it should be sent to table separately. The gravy for omelettes is usually thickened with arrowroot or cornflour.
Wednesday, 7 January 2015
2 November 1901 - 'The White House Class' by Lina Orman Cooper - Chapter 2
How to light a fire, a brief foray into social justice and the manufacture of matches, cooking methods and the question of ethical vegetarianism.
A love of cookery, or rather, of cooking, is born in all children. From their earliest years they will make sand or mud pies, turn puddings out of buckets on the shore, or make feasts in winkles and cockle shells. Who does not remember the toffee of childhood boiled only on snowy days and as hard as the nether millstone? Who does not recall the tallow, crimson drops evolved by application of a sugary lump to a smoking candle? Who does not recall the delight of snow pancakes and even of those wonderful flat loaves made from courtcards? Who does not love doughy pigs with currant eyes, or pastry mice with tender tails?
Yet how few of the maidens who esteemed an hour in the kitchen as the greatest pleasure of all their pleasurable childhood carry out this love into intelligent interest and manipulation in other years? Miss Benson had not been in error when she said that the three young Mertons would look upon the classes as a grand bit of fun. They came in sparkling and dimpling and bursting with eagerness. For the first morning their instructress let them work their own sweet will, “Just to let them know their own ignorance,” as she said. When this was manifested by a pile of burnt pies and sodden cakes, she raised their spirits by telling them that she would see they made no mistakes in future.
“Listen to what I say and follow what I say, and you will be successful.” And successful they were in the end, though inaccuracy and carelessness and inattention spoiled many a dish even after they had set themselves to learn in real earnest.
As Miss Benson’s classes were no formal ones, so no formal sequence of proceedings marked them. Just as was convenient she taught them various things, so my readers must not wonder if the lessons hopped from pastry to turnips and from soups to sweets.
“The first thing a cook must learn is how to lay and light a fire,” said Miss Benson, as her small class came in the next day. “I have not allowed cook to do mine this morning so that you might have a chance. Coal, sticks, and paper are the articles wanted. Rake out every bit of dust and cinder. Your fire requires air to breathe just as much as your lungs do. Now put a few of the larger cinders at the bottom. On them place a handful of sticks. No, not in a bunch like that, Linda! Build them up as you would do bricks. You have in your hand a bundle of prepared kindling twigs. Each end has been dipped in resin, as you see, to make it catch easily. A bundle costs one halfpenny, and half a bundle should be sufficient to light up a big range fire quickly. If speed be not an object the bundle can be made to light three fires, and it should be expected to do so, when used in the parlour or bedroom. For one penny, therefore, you have sufficient kindling material for three fires. Remember this when you have servants of your own, my dears.”
“But when wood is so cheap, is there any need to be so particular?” inquired Lucilla, with her most grande-dame air. “It hardly seems worth while, does it?”
“My dear child,” said Miss Benson, you have evidently never mastered the first principles of economics! A wise man has said, ‘Political economy consists in spending a pound to save a penny. Household economy consists in spending a penny to save a pound’. This is true, and every penny saved is a penny gained. I will not bid you add up the amount to credit if you save just one farthing in firewood per diem! Such statistics are futile to most folk! But I will demonstrate truth in another way. The heap of firewood in that corner beside you cost sixpence. There are twelve bundles. Take a third from each bundle, and you will lose four bundles at once! That is, that you waste twopence out of every sixpence, or nearly seven shillings out of every pound!”
Lucilla looked convinced. It was all as clear as day when Miss Benson put it that way!
“Now use that wire shovel beside you for taking up each bit of cinder. Heap it on the wood, and intersperse it with lumps of round coal. Not large ones, Linda! Just the smallest in the bucket. There! Your fire is alight!”
“But you use expensive matches, I see, Miss Benson,” quoth Lucille, remembering the little lecture on saving she had just been given.
“Yes, my dear, for two reasons! One is that common Swedish matches at fourpence a dozen are apt to catch fire when not wanted. Only the other night a child came in to me with her hand badly scorched by a box of these cheap things exploding in it! Extracting one match is often sufficient to cause the whole box to ignite. The second reason is that most match-making is a most fatal trade. By improper sanitary precautions the match-makers of England suffer from a most terrible and fatal disease called ‘Phosphorous jaw’. Manufacturers know that unless certain precautions are taken this dreadful disease is sure to attack those who engage in it. If these precautions are taken, it makes match-making a more expensive process than if they are given out to be made at home. For this reason I always use the matches made by the Salvation Army. These are made under healthy and safe conditions. And I believe Bryant and May are careful about their employees too, and their matches are very well made!”
“Then we should all use safety matches from unselfish as well as selfish motives,” remarked Lucilla. “I have only heard the cheap ones condemned because they are unsafe.”
“That is the reason usually given, because folks have not looked into the matter,” said Miss Benson earnestly. “But my reason is, as I have told you, because in safety matches, which are said to light only on the box, the head of the match contains no phosphorus as do those of ordinary make. They are tipped with a mixture of chlorate of potash and sulphide of antimony. These are comparatively harmless chemicals.”
Linda, whilst the talk had been going on, had the fire well laid and blazing. Miss Benson bid her carry away all refuse and, when the first blaze was a little over, she was directed to add more coal.
“As Mr Ruskin says a knowledge of cookery includes many other things, I must give you a little lecture about coal, I suppose,” sighed Miss Benson, for her class was eager to get “forrard”. “I wonder which of you girls can tell me to what kingdom it belongs.”
“As it is dug out of the ground, I suppose to the mineral,” quoth all three at once.
But the old lady shook her head.
“To the vegetable, my dears! Coal is of vegetable origin. It is, indeed, the remains of vast forests which grew in the carboniferous period! There is a long word for you, little Eva! Wherever coal is now found was once, ages and ages ago, vast swampy forests, in which grew gigantic trees. These forests subsided beneath the sea, and the accumulated vegetable matter was covered with a layer of sand. The wet vegetable matter underwent slow decomposition, and consequently became richer and richer in carbon. Our ordinary household contains, I believe, on an average about 88 per cent of carbon. That is why it fizzes in little jets and gives out such a cheery flame. Another form of true economy, Lucilla, is connected with coal. The cheapest is never the cheapest in the long run! Good, hard, clean coal is far less wasteful in use than cheap, soft stuff. It burns itself and does not leave behind clinkers and cinders and ash. I save the proverbial pound by spending the proverbial penny in this matter.”
The kind of fire necessary to our different processes of cooking were next dwelt upon. For roasting, Miss Benson said, a clear hot fire was called for. This could be secured by having the front surface built up of lumps and kept in place by a background of damp slack.
“In large kitchens,” she said, “the fireplaces are built very shallow. At King’s College, Cambridge, where the kitchens are almost as beautiful as the Chapel, long grates measuring only about three inches in depth are found. These give a large surface and very little background. Spits hang before these long gratings, and food is cooked in the most digestible way. In roasting, our object must be to seal up the juices of the meat in a kind of envelope. Hence we hang a joint as near the fire as we can. Intense heat freezes the surface, to use a Hibernianism. After a time the meat is drawn backwards and basting begins. This keeps the inside moist and helps to make the envelope crisp. The rule for roasting is, twenty minutes before the hottest part of a fire to begin with; then twenty minutes to each pound at a reasonable distance from the same.
“For baking we need much the same kind of fire, but it must be as fierce at the back as in front, otherwise our oven will not heat. This fire must be kept at the same heat all the time the oven is required. Regulation of it must take place by letting in air to the oven and letting out fair from it. Twenty minutes to each pound is again the rule for all meat cookery in an oven. Roasting and baking may be called the aristocratic branches of heating. The poor must be content with boiling and stewing – indeed so must the dyspeptics! No way is meat so digestible as when stewed. By stewing I mean extracting the juices and goodness of meat by slow boiling. French people seldom cook in any other way, and in stewing, inferior or, I would rather say, less expensive parts of a carcass can be used. Really inferior meat is never economical. Go to the best butcher in the town, is my advice. If you cannot afford to buy the best joints buy the cheaper ones. But by dealing with an honest well-to-do man you are sure of getting good value for money, and of getting even the less tasty part of meat of good quality. It is the duty of a cook to so present these inferior parts that they may be just as nourishing and toothsome as the superior ones. A good cook in this way is a most economical thing. I pity housewives who have to put up with a ‘slavey’ at six pound a year. She will waste more thorough ignorance than one realises. If you cannot have a good trained cook, girls, then do the cooking yourselves! So much depends on the kitchen in a modern household – health and spirits and brain and cheerfulness!”
Miss Benson had apparently forgotten the last branch of cookery. Lucilla reminded her she had said nothing about boiling.
“For boiling,” amended the old lady, “you need a gentle heat. For what is called boiling a joint is not boiling at all – or certainly not beyond the first two minutes. Here again our object must be to produce an envelope capable of resisting the action of hot water. This we obtain by plunging the leg or shoulder or chicken into a pot of madly bubbling water. Introduction of the said shoulder, etc., immediately stops boiling. But let the pot come up to a bubble again and you will have sealed the pores of the meat, and can depend on juices being retained until it is cut at table. All delicate-looking white-complexioned meat is produced by not attending to this rule. And then not only is the meat tasteless but its most nourishing properties have been left behind in the pot from which it was lifted. That contains the essence, as it were, extracted by the process of stewing.”
“Mother told me to ask you, Miss Benson, if New Zealand frozen meat is as nourishing as English-fed animals? It is so much cheaper, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” replied Miss Benson. “It may be prejudice but I must confess I prefer nice English mutton to any which has come over the sea. New Zealand lamb, however, and American beef are much in vogue now. It depends entirely on how long they are cooked whether they are as nourishing as English produce. In some ways I rejoice at the introduction of ice chambers and refrigerators. It has done away with much of the dreadful trade of shipping living animals for consumption in our little island. It makes one inclined to forswear all animal food to read of the torments inflicted on poor brutes during the passage, say, from Ireland to England, or from Normandy to us.”
“Do you, then, approve of vegetarianism?” queried Eva with wide-open eyes.
“Yes, in many ways,” answered Miss Benson. “But for ourselves I believe our cold climate calls for use of animal food in moderation. We eat far too much as a rule, little Eva. If milk and eggs could be procured as cheaply and easily as flesh, I think our artisan population might be largely benefited by using them more generously. I am sure our ‘upper suckles’ would benefit largely by knocking off half their daily meat allowance.”
By this time the hour was up. Miss Benson and her two pupils looked ruefully at the clock.
“We have done absolutely no cooking this morning,” urged the trio. “Can’t we go on for awhile?” But Miss Benson shook her head.
“I perceive these classes will be as diffuse as Mr Ruskin could wish!” she said. “But one hour is quite enough, my dears, both for teacher and for taught. Next week, I promise you, you shall do some real cooking. But you will have to light the fire first, remember.”
A love of cookery, or rather, of cooking, is born in all children. From their earliest years they will make sand or mud pies, turn puddings out of buckets on the shore, or make feasts in winkles and cockle shells. Who does not remember the toffee of childhood boiled only on snowy days and as hard as the nether millstone? Who does not recall the tallow, crimson drops evolved by application of a sugary lump to a smoking candle? Who does not recall the delight of snow pancakes and even of those wonderful flat loaves made from courtcards? Who does not love doughy pigs with currant eyes, or pastry mice with tender tails?
Yet how few of the maidens who esteemed an hour in the kitchen as the greatest pleasure of all their pleasurable childhood carry out this love into intelligent interest and manipulation in other years? Miss Benson had not been in error when she said that the three young Mertons would look upon the classes as a grand bit of fun. They came in sparkling and dimpling and bursting with eagerness. For the first morning their instructress let them work their own sweet will, “Just to let them know their own ignorance,” as she said. When this was manifested by a pile of burnt pies and sodden cakes, she raised their spirits by telling them that she would see they made no mistakes in future.
“Listen to what I say and follow what I say, and you will be successful.” And successful they were in the end, though inaccuracy and carelessness and inattention spoiled many a dish even after they had set themselves to learn in real earnest.
As Miss Benson’s classes were no formal ones, so no formal sequence of proceedings marked them. Just as was convenient she taught them various things, so my readers must not wonder if the lessons hopped from pastry to turnips and from soups to sweets.
“The first thing a cook must learn is how to lay and light a fire,” said Miss Benson, as her small class came in the next day. “I have not allowed cook to do mine this morning so that you might have a chance. Coal, sticks, and paper are the articles wanted. Rake out every bit of dust and cinder. Your fire requires air to breathe just as much as your lungs do. Now put a few of the larger cinders at the bottom. On them place a handful of sticks. No, not in a bunch like that, Linda! Build them up as you would do bricks. You have in your hand a bundle of prepared kindling twigs. Each end has been dipped in resin, as you see, to make it catch easily. A bundle costs one halfpenny, and half a bundle should be sufficient to light up a big range fire quickly. If speed be not an object the bundle can be made to light three fires, and it should be expected to do so, when used in the parlour or bedroom. For one penny, therefore, you have sufficient kindling material for three fires. Remember this when you have servants of your own, my dears.”
“But when wood is so cheap, is there any need to be so particular?” inquired Lucilla, with her most grande-dame air. “It hardly seems worth while, does it?”
“My dear child,” said Miss Benson, you have evidently never mastered the first principles of economics! A wise man has said, ‘Political economy consists in spending a pound to save a penny. Household economy consists in spending a penny to save a pound’. This is true, and every penny saved is a penny gained. I will not bid you add up the amount to credit if you save just one farthing in firewood per diem! Such statistics are futile to most folk! But I will demonstrate truth in another way. The heap of firewood in that corner beside you cost sixpence. There are twelve bundles. Take a third from each bundle, and you will lose four bundles at once! That is, that you waste twopence out of every sixpence, or nearly seven shillings out of every pound!”
Lucilla looked convinced. It was all as clear as day when Miss Benson put it that way!
“Now use that wire shovel beside you for taking up each bit of cinder. Heap it on the wood, and intersperse it with lumps of round coal. Not large ones, Linda! Just the smallest in the bucket. There! Your fire is alight!”
“But you use expensive matches, I see, Miss Benson,” quoth Lucille, remembering the little lecture on saving she had just been given.
“Yes, my dear, for two reasons! One is that common Swedish matches at fourpence a dozen are apt to catch fire when not wanted. Only the other night a child came in to me with her hand badly scorched by a box of these cheap things exploding in it! Extracting one match is often sufficient to cause the whole box to ignite. The second reason is that most match-making is a most fatal trade. By improper sanitary precautions the match-makers of England suffer from a most terrible and fatal disease called ‘Phosphorous jaw’. Manufacturers know that unless certain precautions are taken this dreadful disease is sure to attack those who engage in it. If these precautions are taken, it makes match-making a more expensive process than if they are given out to be made at home. For this reason I always use the matches made by the Salvation Army. These are made under healthy and safe conditions. And I believe Bryant and May are careful about their employees too, and their matches are very well made!”
“Then we should all use safety matches from unselfish as well as selfish motives,” remarked Lucilla. “I have only heard the cheap ones condemned because they are unsafe.”
“That is the reason usually given, because folks have not looked into the matter,” said Miss Benson earnestly. “But my reason is, as I have told you, because in safety matches, which are said to light only on the box, the head of the match contains no phosphorus as do those of ordinary make. They are tipped with a mixture of chlorate of potash and sulphide of antimony. These are comparatively harmless chemicals.”
Linda, whilst the talk had been going on, had the fire well laid and blazing. Miss Benson bid her carry away all refuse and, when the first blaze was a little over, she was directed to add more coal.
“As Mr Ruskin says a knowledge of cookery includes many other things, I must give you a little lecture about coal, I suppose,” sighed Miss Benson, for her class was eager to get “forrard”. “I wonder which of you girls can tell me to what kingdom it belongs.”
“As it is dug out of the ground, I suppose to the mineral,” quoth all three at once.
But the old lady shook her head.
“To the vegetable, my dears! Coal is of vegetable origin. It is, indeed, the remains of vast forests which grew in the carboniferous period! There is a long word for you, little Eva! Wherever coal is now found was once, ages and ages ago, vast swampy forests, in which grew gigantic trees. These forests subsided beneath the sea, and the accumulated vegetable matter was covered with a layer of sand. The wet vegetable matter underwent slow decomposition, and consequently became richer and richer in carbon. Our ordinary household contains, I believe, on an average about 88 per cent of carbon. That is why it fizzes in little jets and gives out such a cheery flame. Another form of true economy, Lucilla, is connected with coal. The cheapest is never the cheapest in the long run! Good, hard, clean coal is far less wasteful in use than cheap, soft stuff. It burns itself and does not leave behind clinkers and cinders and ash. I save the proverbial pound by spending the proverbial penny in this matter.”
The kind of fire necessary to our different processes of cooking were next dwelt upon. For roasting, Miss Benson said, a clear hot fire was called for. This could be secured by having the front surface built up of lumps and kept in place by a background of damp slack.
“In large kitchens,” she said, “the fireplaces are built very shallow. At King’s College, Cambridge, where the kitchens are almost as beautiful as the Chapel, long grates measuring only about three inches in depth are found. These give a large surface and very little background. Spits hang before these long gratings, and food is cooked in the most digestible way. In roasting, our object must be to seal up the juices of the meat in a kind of envelope. Hence we hang a joint as near the fire as we can. Intense heat freezes the surface, to use a Hibernianism. After a time the meat is drawn backwards and basting begins. This keeps the inside moist and helps to make the envelope crisp. The rule for roasting is, twenty minutes before the hottest part of a fire to begin with; then twenty minutes to each pound at a reasonable distance from the same.
“For baking we need much the same kind of fire, but it must be as fierce at the back as in front, otherwise our oven will not heat. This fire must be kept at the same heat all the time the oven is required. Regulation of it must take place by letting in air to the oven and letting out fair from it. Twenty minutes to each pound is again the rule for all meat cookery in an oven. Roasting and baking may be called the aristocratic branches of heating. The poor must be content with boiling and stewing – indeed so must the dyspeptics! No way is meat so digestible as when stewed. By stewing I mean extracting the juices and goodness of meat by slow boiling. French people seldom cook in any other way, and in stewing, inferior or, I would rather say, less expensive parts of a carcass can be used. Really inferior meat is never economical. Go to the best butcher in the town, is my advice. If you cannot afford to buy the best joints buy the cheaper ones. But by dealing with an honest well-to-do man you are sure of getting good value for money, and of getting even the less tasty part of meat of good quality. It is the duty of a cook to so present these inferior parts that they may be just as nourishing and toothsome as the superior ones. A good cook in this way is a most economical thing. I pity housewives who have to put up with a ‘slavey’ at six pound a year. She will waste more thorough ignorance than one realises. If you cannot have a good trained cook, girls, then do the cooking yourselves! So much depends on the kitchen in a modern household – health and spirits and brain and cheerfulness!”
Miss Benson had apparently forgotten the last branch of cookery. Lucilla reminded her she had said nothing about boiling.
“For boiling,” amended the old lady, “you need a gentle heat. For what is called boiling a joint is not boiling at all – or certainly not beyond the first two minutes. Here again our object must be to produce an envelope capable of resisting the action of hot water. This we obtain by plunging the leg or shoulder or chicken into a pot of madly bubbling water. Introduction of the said shoulder, etc., immediately stops boiling. But let the pot come up to a bubble again and you will have sealed the pores of the meat, and can depend on juices being retained until it is cut at table. All delicate-looking white-complexioned meat is produced by not attending to this rule. And then not only is the meat tasteless but its most nourishing properties have been left behind in the pot from which it was lifted. That contains the essence, as it were, extracted by the process of stewing.”
“Mother told me to ask you, Miss Benson, if New Zealand frozen meat is as nourishing as English-fed animals? It is so much cheaper, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” replied Miss Benson. “It may be prejudice but I must confess I prefer nice English mutton to any which has come over the sea. New Zealand lamb, however, and American beef are much in vogue now. It depends entirely on how long they are cooked whether they are as nourishing as English produce. In some ways I rejoice at the introduction of ice chambers and refrigerators. It has done away with much of the dreadful trade of shipping living animals for consumption in our little island. It makes one inclined to forswear all animal food to read of the torments inflicted on poor brutes during the passage, say, from Ireland to England, or from Normandy to us.”
“Do you, then, approve of vegetarianism?” queried Eva with wide-open eyes.
“Yes, in many ways,” answered Miss Benson. “But for ourselves I believe our cold climate calls for use of animal food in moderation. We eat far too much as a rule, little Eva. If milk and eggs could be procured as cheaply and easily as flesh, I think our artisan population might be largely benefited by using them more generously. I am sure our ‘upper suckles’ would benefit largely by knocking off half their daily meat allowance.”
By this time the hour was up. Miss Benson and her two pupils looked ruefully at the clock.
“We have done absolutely no cooking this morning,” urged the trio. “Can’t we go on for awhile?” But Miss Benson shook her head.
“I perceive these classes will be as diffuse as Mr Ruskin could wish!” she said. “But one hour is quite enough, my dears, both for teacher and for taught. Next week, I promise you, you shall do some real cooking. But you will have to light the fire first, remember.”
Sunday, 16 February 2014
24 March 1900 - 'A Little Strengthening Medicine' by 'The New Doctor'
In which The New Doctor rails against people who use bitters and tonics when he thinks they don't need to, and a veterinary surgeon's treatment of a lady's dog is questionable.
A certain lady brought her pet lap-dog to a veterinary surgeon. “Poor dear Fido,” she said, “has quite lost his appetite of late. He will scarcely eat anything, and is very depressed and listless. I have tried to tempt him with every dainty I could think of, but it is all to no purpose. The poor dear cannot eat. Yesterday he could scarcely manage the breast of a fowl which he had specially cooked for him. I am afraid that he must be very ill indeed! Do you think that you can cure him? Cannot you give him a little strengthening medicine to improve his appetite?”
“Yes, madam,” replied the veterinary surgeon; “I think I can cure him, but I am afraid you must leave him with me for the next three days. If you will call again on Thursday, I hope to be able to restore dear Fido to you quite cured.”
“Oh dear!” exclaimed the lady, “I am very, very sorry to leave poor dear Fido, but I suppose it is necessary. Now be sure to give him everything he wants to eat, and do not on any account stint anything that he may fancy. Remember that expense is of no moment.”
“Very well, madam. I will do my very best to cure him! Good morning.”
And the lady departed quite at her ease, but had she lingered a few moments longer, she would have heard what would have much troubled her peace of mind, and might have been very unfortunate for the health of her dog. As soon as she had gone –
“Bob,” cried out the veterinary, “take that dog and chain him up in the yard, and remember to give him nothing whatever to eat till Thursday.”
Having seen to her favourite, the lady turns her attention to her own case. She also is suffering from loss of appetite, headache and lassitude. She also wants a little strengthening medicine. So she calls on her family doctor. She tells him her symptoms, ending up with the phrase which is ever ringing in the medical ear, “Could you give me a little strengthening medicine, please, doctor?”
The answer she gets to this question and the treatment she will be advised for her complaint will vary a good deal with many circumstances.
Had she lived half a century ago and consulted a celebrated surgeon, f whom a certain kind of biscuit takes its name, she would have had a very warm quarter of an hour, and she would have left his consulting-room in a very bad temper, with no bottle of strengthening medicine in her bag, and with curt suggestions as to treatment with which she would have been far from pleased. She would have determined never again to enter the house of this impertinent, ungentlemanly man. But if she had carried out his treatment, she would have been cured in a few days.
But too often she will leave the consulting-room smiling, with a very tempting bottle of strengthening medicine and pleasant suggestions about more dainty dishes, and a very little old port wine after lunch and a small glass of liqueur after dinner; and she remembers for many a long day her charming interview with that delightful and clever doctor.
And a few days later she repeats her visit, and continues her visits for weeks, months, years, her whole life, and she never gets cured.
And as time goes on she begins to think something serious is the matter with her, and thinks of cancer or some other extremely unlikely catastrophe, and she goes on feeding herself up and eating and drinking more and more to keep up her strength. And she gets worse and worse, and weaker and weaker, till she dies of apoplexy or some such thing.
And if you ask us what causes all this, we reply, unhesitatingly, it is the little strengthening medicine and the advice which goes with it, which has done it all.
It is the little strengthening medicine which has given the kind-hearted doctor a well-paying, life-long patient. It is the refusal to grant the little strengthening medicine which has lost the great surgeon the same influential patient.
On Thursday, the lady calls for her dog, and instantly he perceives her he rushes to her arms. And the poor darling little Fido has quite recovered his appetite, and is quite his own self again.
In her walk, or rather drive (for the lady we are describing does not approve of so tiresome an exercise as walking), she ponders over the complete cure of her dear little Fido, and she can scarcely help comparing his case with he own, and the greater knowledge of the veterinary over her own doctor.
But is this fair? Is it fair to compare the results obtained by a veterinary surgeon, who deals with subjects who are unreasoning and who cannot rebel against his treatment, with those obtained by the family doctor hampered by conventionality and crushed by the whims of a reasoning but unreasonable patient, who will not carry out any of his instructions, save such as conforms to her own wishes?
Both this lady and her lap-dog are suffering from the same complaint, caused by the same thing – overeating. This lady has probably been eating and drinking too much, and stuffing her dog at the same time, until both are ill, and both need the same very simple treatment, which the dog can get, but the human being cannot, or rather will not.
We have before told you that we thoroughly disbelieve the opinion held by so many that evey Englishwoman overeats herself. And we firmly believe that anyone who eats until her appetite is satisfied, and then leaves off, will not take into her stomach more food than is necessary, provided she takes a mixed diet, that she takes a reasonable amount of exercise, and that she does not artificially stimulate her appetite in any way.
It is to this last factor, the artificial stimulation of the appetite, that we are directing your attention. The right and natural method of stimulating the appetite, which is exercise, may be, nay, should be, indulged in by everyone, whether she be health or ill. But the artificial stimulation of the appetite which is affected by bitters, tonics and strengthening medicines, requires very great deliberation and judgment before it is justified.
We have said that the appetite should be satisfied. It is the stomach’s call for nutriment. So long as the stomach is not filled the appetite is present. When the stomach is satisfied the appetite fails. But it is possible to pervert the appetite. It is possible by careful and systematic overeating to create an appetite which is not readily satisfied, and which persisted after the stomach is filled.
The careful training of the digestive organs to withstand chronic abuse in the way of overwork has long ago reached a high state of development, and is now one of the most respected and popular of the fine arts.
Now let us study the ways by which we can pervert our appetites. Unfortunately, all the measures which enable us to overeat stimulate the digestive organs to digest more than necessary. If only they made those who took them sick afterwards, they would not do so much harm. But they overwork the organs to digest too much nutriment and to throw the excess of food into the blood stream, whence, as it is unnecessary, it has to be discarded, and this throws excess of labour on to the excretory organs, mainly the liver and the kidneys.
The result of all this is obviously that the body of the gourmand is doing too much work, work which is useless, namely, the preparation and assimilation of useless food which has to be immediately thrown out of the body.
And so the body gets worn out before its time. It is working too hard. It is living at too high a tension, and consequently its life is short. The gourmand dies young; the chronic port-drinker dies young. Yet both of these die of old age, of degeneration. They have, as it were, lived their lives too rapidly; they have been burning the candle at both ends, and they die of degeneration of the arteries, of the heart, of the kidneys, and of the liver. And what are these but the signs of decay, of old age, and of death? The arteries are worn out, not by years of steady normal strain, but by excessive activity and abnormal use.
The agents which enable the body to assimilate too much food are either medicinal agents, or substances present in the food itself.
Of the latter there are soups, which, though in themselves innutritious, are powerful stimulants to digestion, highly-spiced entrees, and all the alcoholic beverages.
The medicinal agents are bitters and strengthening medicines.
We do not say that bitters are to be universally condemned, nor that strengthening medicines are always harmful. It may be necessary to produce an appetite by artificial means when the natural call for food is absent through disease. And in some diseases, such as consumption and hysteria, systematic overfeeding will do more to cure the patient than anything else. And we have drugs which will produce or increase the appetite, and will stimulate the organs to digest the excess of food.
But the gourmand has found this out. And he says to himself, “If acids and bitters after meals, or bitters and sherry before meals, will increase the appetites of those who are sick, will it not enable me to increase my capacity for gorging?” And he tries sherry and bitters for the purpose.
Bitters are terrible poisons and few persons who take an occasional bitter before an extra good dinner really know that they are laying for themselves a path which may lead them to a life of constant misery, of ill-health, of moral weakness, and of early termination. What a lost is meant by that short phrase, “I want a little strengthening medicine, please, doctor.” How much misery and ill-health is connected with it! Yet the strengthening medicine is taken by many persons, a few for whom it is necessary or advantageous, a vast number for whom it is poisonous.
Most persons have an idea that when they are “run down”, a bottle of strengthening medicine will pull them together again in a very short time. And many persons also have the insane notion that the feeling of lassitude and general debility is usually caused by insufficient food, whereas in truth not one case of debility in a hundred is due to insufficient nourishment. The vast majority of cases are due to too little exercise.
A concrete example will often emphasise a point when a host of theoretical arguments fail to impress themselves. So we will give you the history or one of the very many thousands of sufferers who yearly ruin their health by strengthening medicines.
The Rev. Mr. ____, thirty years of age, consulted a celebrated physician last year for generally debility, lassitude, loss of appetite, and, as he expressed it, complete “run-downness.”
Three years previous to the interview he was a country curate doing a great deal of work with plenty, perhaps excess, of exercise, and had consequently developed a very large appetite. He was, as are most persons who lead an active outdoor life, perfectly healthy. But having come into a considerable fortune from an unexpected source, he gave up his country curacy and came to London, where he lived an indoor life of great mental study. He found that his appetite was beginning to fail, as of course it should, now that he no longer lived an active life, and was much alarmed to find that he could only eat a comparatively small amount.
He managed to put himself into the hands of a not over-careful or brilliant medical man, who told him that he wanted feeding up, and gave him some strengthening medicine to increase his appetite.
For two years he continued steadily eating more and more and getting worse and worse. Consequently he had an interview with Dr. ____, and at that time his dietary was as follows:-
9 a.m. Breakfast. He had little appetite for breakfast, but managed a little ham and eggs, or a fried sole and a cup of tea.
11 a.m. A glass of port wine and a sandwich.
1 p.m. A lunch of two or three courses, with claret and a glass of port wine afterwards.
4 p.m. Tea and toast.
6 p.m. An elaborate dinner, with various wines and dessert.
10 p.m. A glass of hot wine.
11 p.m. A little spirits and water before retiring.
He used to take bitters before the chief meals, and acids and gentian afterwards.
When Dr. ____ saw him he was suffering from absolute misery, and said, “Doctor, I cannot eat anything further.” Dr. ____’s first step was to thoroughly examine him, and in the first place he discovered that the unfortunate curate’s teeth were in a lamentable condition. The treatment advised was as follows: A visit to the dentist. No medicines to be taken, save a small dose of calomel every second morning. Five miles at least to be walked every day. Lastly, and most important, the diet must be as follows:-
Breakfast: One boiled egg, toast and butter, and tea.
Lunch: A little fried fish, milk-pudding, bread, etc.
Dinner: A moderate dinner of two courses only.
All his wine and spirits were cut off.
The reverend gentleman was horrified at this, and said he would be starved to death on such a diet. But he followed Dr. ____’s advice, and was perfectly well in a fortnight, and has remained so to the present day.
We have laid aside our pen for a time, and the first patient we see asks us for “a little strengthening medicine, please, doctor.” Are we never to hear the end of this miserable sentence? Are we doomed throughout life to hear this self-same call of the surfeited for stimulation to further excess?
Yes, madam, we will give you a little moral strengthening medicine. Don’t eat so much; sell your carriage and use your legs; stop your snacks and glasses of curacoa; live a sensible life, and think of something else than your alimentary canal!
Undergo the treatment that the veterinary surgeon gave to the lap-dog, or that which Abernethy gave to your grandmother: “Live on half-a-crown a day, and earn it.”
But do you think she will take our advice? Not she! She will go round to every doctor in the neighbourhood till she comes to one who will order her more to eat and give her the beloved bottle of strengthening medicine!
A certain lady brought her pet lap-dog to a veterinary surgeon. “Poor dear Fido,” she said, “has quite lost his appetite of late. He will scarcely eat anything, and is very depressed and listless. I have tried to tempt him with every dainty I could think of, but it is all to no purpose. The poor dear cannot eat. Yesterday he could scarcely manage the breast of a fowl which he had specially cooked for him. I am afraid that he must be very ill indeed! Do you think that you can cure him? Cannot you give him a little strengthening medicine to improve his appetite?”
“Yes, madam,” replied the veterinary surgeon; “I think I can cure him, but I am afraid you must leave him with me for the next three days. If you will call again on Thursday, I hope to be able to restore dear Fido to you quite cured.”
“Oh dear!” exclaimed the lady, “I am very, very sorry to leave poor dear Fido, but I suppose it is necessary. Now be sure to give him everything he wants to eat, and do not on any account stint anything that he may fancy. Remember that expense is of no moment.”
“Very well, madam. I will do my very best to cure him! Good morning.”
And the lady departed quite at her ease, but had she lingered a few moments longer, she would have heard what would have much troubled her peace of mind, and might have been very unfortunate for the health of her dog. As soon as she had gone –
“Bob,” cried out the veterinary, “take that dog and chain him up in the yard, and remember to give him nothing whatever to eat till Thursday.”
Having seen to her favourite, the lady turns her attention to her own case. She also is suffering from loss of appetite, headache and lassitude. She also wants a little strengthening medicine. So she calls on her family doctor. She tells him her symptoms, ending up with the phrase which is ever ringing in the medical ear, “Could you give me a little strengthening medicine, please, doctor?”
The answer she gets to this question and the treatment she will be advised for her complaint will vary a good deal with many circumstances.
Had she lived half a century ago and consulted a celebrated surgeon, f whom a certain kind of biscuit takes its name, she would have had a very warm quarter of an hour, and she would have left his consulting-room in a very bad temper, with no bottle of strengthening medicine in her bag, and with curt suggestions as to treatment with which she would have been far from pleased. She would have determined never again to enter the house of this impertinent, ungentlemanly man. But if she had carried out his treatment, she would have been cured in a few days.
But too often she will leave the consulting-room smiling, with a very tempting bottle of strengthening medicine and pleasant suggestions about more dainty dishes, and a very little old port wine after lunch and a small glass of liqueur after dinner; and she remembers for many a long day her charming interview with that delightful and clever doctor.
And a few days later she repeats her visit, and continues her visits for weeks, months, years, her whole life, and she never gets cured.
And as time goes on she begins to think something serious is the matter with her, and thinks of cancer or some other extremely unlikely catastrophe, and she goes on feeding herself up and eating and drinking more and more to keep up her strength. And she gets worse and worse, and weaker and weaker, till she dies of apoplexy or some such thing.
And if you ask us what causes all this, we reply, unhesitatingly, it is the little strengthening medicine and the advice which goes with it, which has done it all.
It is the little strengthening medicine which has given the kind-hearted doctor a well-paying, life-long patient. It is the refusal to grant the little strengthening medicine which has lost the great surgeon the same influential patient.
On Thursday, the lady calls for her dog, and instantly he perceives her he rushes to her arms. And the poor darling little Fido has quite recovered his appetite, and is quite his own self again.
In her walk, or rather drive (for the lady we are describing does not approve of so tiresome an exercise as walking), she ponders over the complete cure of her dear little Fido, and she can scarcely help comparing his case with he own, and the greater knowledge of the veterinary over her own doctor.
But is this fair? Is it fair to compare the results obtained by a veterinary surgeon, who deals with subjects who are unreasoning and who cannot rebel against his treatment, with those obtained by the family doctor hampered by conventionality and crushed by the whims of a reasoning but unreasonable patient, who will not carry out any of his instructions, save such as conforms to her own wishes?
Both this lady and her lap-dog are suffering from the same complaint, caused by the same thing – overeating. This lady has probably been eating and drinking too much, and stuffing her dog at the same time, until both are ill, and both need the same very simple treatment, which the dog can get, but the human being cannot, or rather will not.
We have before told you that we thoroughly disbelieve the opinion held by so many that evey Englishwoman overeats herself. And we firmly believe that anyone who eats until her appetite is satisfied, and then leaves off, will not take into her stomach more food than is necessary, provided she takes a mixed diet, that she takes a reasonable amount of exercise, and that she does not artificially stimulate her appetite in any way.
It is to this last factor, the artificial stimulation of the appetite, that we are directing your attention. The right and natural method of stimulating the appetite, which is exercise, may be, nay, should be, indulged in by everyone, whether she be health or ill. But the artificial stimulation of the appetite which is affected by bitters, tonics and strengthening medicines, requires very great deliberation and judgment before it is justified.
We have said that the appetite should be satisfied. It is the stomach’s call for nutriment. So long as the stomach is not filled the appetite is present. When the stomach is satisfied the appetite fails. But it is possible to pervert the appetite. It is possible by careful and systematic overeating to create an appetite which is not readily satisfied, and which persisted after the stomach is filled.
The careful training of the digestive organs to withstand chronic abuse in the way of overwork has long ago reached a high state of development, and is now one of the most respected and popular of the fine arts.
Now let us study the ways by which we can pervert our appetites. Unfortunately, all the measures which enable us to overeat stimulate the digestive organs to digest more than necessary. If only they made those who took them sick afterwards, they would not do so much harm. But they overwork the organs to digest too much nutriment and to throw the excess of food into the blood stream, whence, as it is unnecessary, it has to be discarded, and this throws excess of labour on to the excretory organs, mainly the liver and the kidneys.
The result of all this is obviously that the body of the gourmand is doing too much work, work which is useless, namely, the preparation and assimilation of useless food which has to be immediately thrown out of the body.
And so the body gets worn out before its time. It is working too hard. It is living at too high a tension, and consequently its life is short. The gourmand dies young; the chronic port-drinker dies young. Yet both of these die of old age, of degeneration. They have, as it were, lived their lives too rapidly; they have been burning the candle at both ends, and they die of degeneration of the arteries, of the heart, of the kidneys, and of the liver. And what are these but the signs of decay, of old age, and of death? The arteries are worn out, not by years of steady normal strain, but by excessive activity and abnormal use.
The agents which enable the body to assimilate too much food are either medicinal agents, or substances present in the food itself.
Of the latter there are soups, which, though in themselves innutritious, are powerful stimulants to digestion, highly-spiced entrees, and all the alcoholic beverages.
The medicinal agents are bitters and strengthening medicines.
We do not say that bitters are to be universally condemned, nor that strengthening medicines are always harmful. It may be necessary to produce an appetite by artificial means when the natural call for food is absent through disease. And in some diseases, such as consumption and hysteria, systematic overfeeding will do more to cure the patient than anything else. And we have drugs which will produce or increase the appetite, and will stimulate the organs to digest the excess of food.
But the gourmand has found this out. And he says to himself, “If acids and bitters after meals, or bitters and sherry before meals, will increase the appetites of those who are sick, will it not enable me to increase my capacity for gorging?” And he tries sherry and bitters for the purpose.
Bitters are terrible poisons and few persons who take an occasional bitter before an extra good dinner really know that they are laying for themselves a path which may lead them to a life of constant misery, of ill-health, of moral weakness, and of early termination. What a lost is meant by that short phrase, “I want a little strengthening medicine, please, doctor.” How much misery and ill-health is connected with it! Yet the strengthening medicine is taken by many persons, a few for whom it is necessary or advantageous, a vast number for whom it is poisonous.
Most persons have an idea that when they are “run down”, a bottle of strengthening medicine will pull them together again in a very short time. And many persons also have the insane notion that the feeling of lassitude and general debility is usually caused by insufficient food, whereas in truth not one case of debility in a hundred is due to insufficient nourishment. The vast majority of cases are due to too little exercise.
A concrete example will often emphasise a point when a host of theoretical arguments fail to impress themselves. So we will give you the history or one of the very many thousands of sufferers who yearly ruin their health by strengthening medicines.
The Rev. Mr. ____, thirty years of age, consulted a celebrated physician last year for generally debility, lassitude, loss of appetite, and, as he expressed it, complete “run-downness.”
Three years previous to the interview he was a country curate doing a great deal of work with plenty, perhaps excess, of exercise, and had consequently developed a very large appetite. He was, as are most persons who lead an active outdoor life, perfectly healthy. But having come into a considerable fortune from an unexpected source, he gave up his country curacy and came to London, where he lived an indoor life of great mental study. He found that his appetite was beginning to fail, as of course it should, now that he no longer lived an active life, and was much alarmed to find that he could only eat a comparatively small amount.
He managed to put himself into the hands of a not over-careful or brilliant medical man, who told him that he wanted feeding up, and gave him some strengthening medicine to increase his appetite.
For two years he continued steadily eating more and more and getting worse and worse. Consequently he had an interview with Dr. ____, and at that time his dietary was as follows:-
9 a.m. Breakfast. He had little appetite for breakfast, but managed a little ham and eggs, or a fried sole and a cup of tea.
11 a.m. A glass of port wine and a sandwich.
1 p.m. A lunch of two or three courses, with claret and a glass of port wine afterwards.
4 p.m. Tea and toast.
6 p.m. An elaborate dinner, with various wines and dessert.
10 p.m. A glass of hot wine.
11 p.m. A little spirits and water before retiring.
He used to take bitters before the chief meals, and acids and gentian afterwards.
When Dr. ____ saw him he was suffering from absolute misery, and said, “Doctor, I cannot eat anything further.” Dr. ____’s first step was to thoroughly examine him, and in the first place he discovered that the unfortunate curate’s teeth were in a lamentable condition. The treatment advised was as follows: A visit to the dentist. No medicines to be taken, save a small dose of calomel every second morning. Five miles at least to be walked every day. Lastly, and most important, the diet must be as follows:-
Breakfast: One boiled egg, toast and butter, and tea.
Lunch: A little fried fish, milk-pudding, bread, etc.
Dinner: A moderate dinner of two courses only.
All his wine and spirits were cut off.
The reverend gentleman was horrified at this, and said he would be starved to death on such a diet. But he followed Dr. ____’s advice, and was perfectly well in a fortnight, and has remained so to the present day.
We have laid aside our pen for a time, and the first patient we see asks us for “a little strengthening medicine, please, doctor.” Are we never to hear the end of this miserable sentence? Are we doomed throughout life to hear this self-same call of the surfeited for stimulation to further excess?
Yes, madam, we will give you a little moral strengthening medicine. Don’t eat so much; sell your carriage and use your legs; stop your snacks and glasses of curacoa; live a sensible life, and think of something else than your alimentary canal!
Undergo the treatment that the veterinary surgeon gave to the lap-dog, or that which Abernethy gave to your grandmother: “Live on half-a-crown a day, and earn it.”
But do you think she will take our advice? Not she! She will go round to every doctor in the neighbourhood till she comes to one who will order her more to eat and give her the beloved bottle of strengthening medicine!
Wednesday, 30 October 2013
28 December 1901 - 'Health Hints for Winter Months' by Gordon Stables M.D., C.M., R.N., aka 'Medicus'
Once upon a time, girls, there lived, as far away up among the bonnie
Highland hills and shaggy forests above Beauly (Inverness-shire) a
beautiful old lady and her husband Ian (pronounced Zean, please). They
belonged to the clan Dannachie, being Robertsons of Struan. They were
not considered extremely aged by their neighbours, for the wife was
barely ninety-seven and her husband was only a hundred and one, and
Scotchfolks, you know, who dwell among the heather and inhale mountain
ozone, and the sweet balsamic breath of the pine-trees, who eat plain
wholesome food and all that, can live as long as they please.
And so one day, when Ian did not return from the forest in time for his frugal one o’clock dinner, and the ghillies were sent in search of him and found him, snuff-box in hand, seated at the foot of a pine-tree dead, it was only considered an accident. It was winter, and the beautiful spruce-tree branches were all pointing downwards with the load of snow they bore; but as the roses never left the dear old man’s cheeks, he was kept near to the fire rolled in blankets and rubbed with whisky for six long days and nights before hope was given up. Then came the wake and the funeral.
Well, this was my maternal great-grandfather, and his wife, certain in her simple soul that she had only to die in order to meet her Ian once again on a happier shore, lived for many years after this. I think that the secret of long life in this good and virtuous old couple lay in their love and respect for fresh air and cleanliness, and the their mantle – or rather Highland plaid – has fallen on me, their unworthy great-grandchild. Not that I expect to have a long life, but just in order that I might breach yet a while the doctrines of health to my GIRL’S OWN PAPER readers, I might, you know.
Cleanliness, however, was a craze with the old lady whom I have mentioned. No one, for example, dared ever to eat with the same knives or forks or from plates, etc., appropriated to her use alone. She had an easy-chair in which nobody ever sat but herself, a Bible that she alone was allowed to use, and, still more strange, a well of her own, with lid and lock and key, the water from which no one else ever drank. But I don’t want my girls to be faddists, although as regards hygiene it is better to err on the right side than the wrong. Moreover, I wish my girls to be always fresh and happy because healthful, and to live to ninety or thereabouts.
Oh, I have no doubt that I have harped upon this string before now, and may again, just to keep it fresh in the memory of our regular subscribers, and by way of teaching the regiment of new girls that annually join our ranks.
SOME HINTS CONCERNING FRESH AIR.
Fresh air constantly renewed is quite as necessary to a healthful existence as food itself, and those unfortunate girls who are confined to office-stools or shops where this never exists soon deteriorate. They do not develop well; they become weakly anaemic, and suffer from loss of appetite, backache of a wearisome character, restless nights and irregularities of every sort. I am sorry to add that the minds of such girls are usually on a par with their bodies, and that scarcely even religion itself suffices to keep them altogether in the right path. I assure you that my heart bleeds when I think of all that these poor lassies have to suffer and endure. But many of these mercantile offices would like to have the windows open if their elders or superiors would only permit it.
In Government offices it is just the same, only for the most part worse. Some of our post-offices, fir instance, are never ventilated, and when you enter one early in the morning the air is of such a foul and ghastly nature that I verily believe blue-bottle flies would drop dead if they came under its influence. Instead of getting fresh air to breathe all day long, as they ought to, these poor hard-worked girl-clerks, shopkeepers, seamstresses, etc., only manage to get a puff of oxygen as they hurry to or from their meals. Is it any wonder that – but there, I’m not going to preach! If, however, girls value beauty of complexion and skin generally, bright eyes and a happy disposition, they will endeavour to obtain at night that of which they are bereft all day, namely fresh air. Let them sleep in it, and this is easily done, as I will presently show you.
The lungs are, so to speak, a pair of bellows which keep up the fires of life. In them the blood, which returns from every part of the body vitiated by carbon or soot,is purified and sent back to the heart, to be pumped out again by that marvellous organ to supply all the needs of nature. Pure blood is supplied to the most minute and uttermost regions of the body, and these make use of it and its oxygen to warm the body and make up for waste of tissue. The blood, darkened now by carbon, returns to the heart, and is sent thence to the lungs to meet fresh air and be once more purified. You cannot see the red or arterial blood circulating from the heart because it is so light in colour, but you cannot look at hand or arm without noticing the veins in which the black blood is rushing backwards to heart and lungs.
BEDROOM DANGERS.
We often hear of people being found dead in bed. A man or woman does not appear at the breakfast-table, but this gives rise to no concern. “She was rather late up last night,” someone may remark. “Let her rest.”
But when the forenoon slips away and there are still no signs of the sleeper, someone more anxious than the others goes to her bedroom door and taps. No answer. Then alarm becomes more general and the door is forced, to find that poor Miss or Mrs Blank sleeps
“The sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil nor night of waking.”
And so the mourners go about the streets.
It is usually about three or four in the morning that such an accident occurs. This is the truth, but I have never heard anyone wonder why. If you ask a medical man, he will tell you that at this hour the powers of life are at their lowest ebb. This may be correct, but in all such cases as I myself have investigated, I have found the bedroom almost hermetically sealed, and believe that had the window been open and the pure air been circling in the apartment, Miss Blank would not have died.
You see that in a close room nearly all the oxygen is exhausted by four o’clock in the morning, and carbonic acid gas has taken its place. There is barely enough pure air therefore to keep body and soul together, and so the weakly one runs a very great risk. I think that the sleep one gets in such a vitiated atmosphere is of no account and very unrefreshing. It is a poisoned sleep of lethargy, such as that which Greenland bears and other hibernating animals obtain, and which reduces them to living skeletons before they emerge in springtime; but these wild animals are possessed of a strength and a vis naturae that is not granted to human beings.
There is another bedroom danger to which I must briefly allude. If one has eaten too freely before going to bed, or of that which may create fermentation, the stomach gets distended and presses against the heart, causing the dreadful nightmares which, combined with the want of fresh air, may end fatally. Concerning nightmares, I have heard it said that if the wild bull you are chased by overtakes you, or if you do in that terrible dream reach the bottom of the precipice over which you feel yourself falling, you never wake again. There is doubtless truth in this.
It must be obvious, then, to the youngest girl who reads this paper, that we cannot have health if we exclude fresh air from the bedroom. I want you to remember too that fires in rooms use the oxygen up and so do lamps and even candles, and that for this very reason you are better to sleep in total darkness. The dangers of bedrooms are very much increased by putting woollen list around the edges of the door, of making use of that awful and deadly sand or sawdust sausage-looking business either at the foot of the door or on the windows. The want of ventilation in the bedroom is very apt indeed to engender colds and to render the lungs themselves ready for the seeds of consumption to be sown therein. You must understand the physiology of this. It is not so much, then, on account of the extra heat of the bedchamber as that the vitiated air renders the system weak; so a girl that has passed the night in such an apartment is in a fit condition to be attacked by any microbe that happens to be afloat.
THE BEDROOM’S VENTILATION.
First I must inform you that the larger the apartment is the better, because the greater is the space for oxygen. Therefore, the less furniture there is in a bedroom the better, and no curtains should be hung either around the windows or bed, nor should dresses be hung up therein. These all harbour dust, and in the dust lives the microbes of almost any disease you can name. But if the room you occupy is small and low in ceiling, it is ever so much more unhealthy, and ventilation is imperative. Ventilation is very simple. For instance, one pane of glass may be taken out and a jalousied glass-work substituted, or the window may be lifted about six inches, and the lower sash allowed to rest upon a board that quite fills up the open space. The air, you see, thus gets in only between the two sashes, and blows right up towards the roof, thus mingling with the rising gases, and rendering them pure and innocuous. Or the upper sash may be lowered and the space filled up with a piece of framed perforated zinc.
But in summer keep the windows wide open all the time, not a wee bit, mind you, but that would mean a roaring draught, but widely, generously open. Your reward will be a total disappearance of all languor on first getting up, the rose tints on lips and cheeks, brighter eyes, and that calm contented feeling which is never experienced by any but the strong.
SAVING UP FOR A HOLIDAY.
Begin now at once to put by small sums for this. If you don’t think yourself too old to put money in the savings bank, do so by all means, and little by little your fresh air fund will mount up, and how very useful this will be when you do get your summer or autumn holiday time will prove. Try this scheme. Mind that pennies saved result in pounds gained.
NERVOUS AND WEAK.
I am really putting the cart before the horse, because it is in the weakness which causes the nervousness, and the symptoms of this trouble are far too numerous even to name. This ailment is called neurasthenia by medical men, a word compounded of two Greek ones, meaning absence of strength in the nervous. It usually arises from want of proper food, fresh air, and pleasurable exercise. Cycling girls who spurt or scorch are subject to it, because they weaken or stretch their hearts. Overwork won’t induce it, but work and worry will. Eating more than enough at meal-times is a very common cause of neurasthenia, owing to the strain on the internal system to get rid of the superabundance. A girl who is fond of the table is always more or less in a state of fever, especially if she uses much meat, flour puddings and sugar.
In cases of this kind, the ignorant fly to physic and dose themselves with tonics, which are most pernicious. The meals should be, breakfast at eight or earlier, having taken a large glass of hot water half an hour before it. Dinner at half-past twelve to one, a small cup of tea with milk and sugar, but nothing to eat, at five, and supper at eight. A light biscuit or two before going to bed, and a glass of milk will do good if hunger is felt, or any gnawing sensation at the pit of the stomach. You may drink if thirsty between meals, but a mere mouthful of water with dinner is enough.
And so one day, when Ian did not return from the forest in time for his frugal one o’clock dinner, and the ghillies were sent in search of him and found him, snuff-box in hand, seated at the foot of a pine-tree dead, it was only considered an accident. It was winter, and the beautiful spruce-tree branches were all pointing downwards with the load of snow they bore; but as the roses never left the dear old man’s cheeks, he was kept near to the fire rolled in blankets and rubbed with whisky for six long days and nights before hope was given up. Then came the wake and the funeral.
Well, this was my maternal great-grandfather, and his wife, certain in her simple soul that she had only to die in order to meet her Ian once again on a happier shore, lived for many years after this. I think that the secret of long life in this good and virtuous old couple lay in their love and respect for fresh air and cleanliness, and the their mantle – or rather Highland plaid – has fallen on me, their unworthy great-grandchild. Not that I expect to have a long life, but just in order that I might breach yet a while the doctrines of health to my GIRL’S OWN PAPER readers, I might, you know.
Cleanliness, however, was a craze with the old lady whom I have mentioned. No one, for example, dared ever to eat with the same knives or forks or from plates, etc., appropriated to her use alone. She had an easy-chair in which nobody ever sat but herself, a Bible that she alone was allowed to use, and, still more strange, a well of her own, with lid and lock and key, the water from which no one else ever drank. But I don’t want my girls to be faddists, although as regards hygiene it is better to err on the right side than the wrong. Moreover, I wish my girls to be always fresh and happy because healthful, and to live to ninety or thereabouts.
Oh, I have no doubt that I have harped upon this string before now, and may again, just to keep it fresh in the memory of our regular subscribers, and by way of teaching the regiment of new girls that annually join our ranks.
SOME HINTS CONCERNING FRESH AIR.
Fresh air constantly renewed is quite as necessary to a healthful existence as food itself, and those unfortunate girls who are confined to office-stools or shops where this never exists soon deteriorate. They do not develop well; they become weakly anaemic, and suffer from loss of appetite, backache of a wearisome character, restless nights and irregularities of every sort. I am sorry to add that the minds of such girls are usually on a par with their bodies, and that scarcely even religion itself suffices to keep them altogether in the right path. I assure you that my heart bleeds when I think of all that these poor lassies have to suffer and endure. But many of these mercantile offices would like to have the windows open if their elders or superiors would only permit it.
In Government offices it is just the same, only for the most part worse. Some of our post-offices, fir instance, are never ventilated, and when you enter one early in the morning the air is of such a foul and ghastly nature that I verily believe blue-bottle flies would drop dead if they came under its influence. Instead of getting fresh air to breathe all day long, as they ought to, these poor hard-worked girl-clerks, shopkeepers, seamstresses, etc., only manage to get a puff of oxygen as they hurry to or from their meals. Is it any wonder that – but there, I’m not going to preach! If, however, girls value beauty of complexion and skin generally, bright eyes and a happy disposition, they will endeavour to obtain at night that of which they are bereft all day, namely fresh air. Let them sleep in it, and this is easily done, as I will presently show you.
The lungs are, so to speak, a pair of bellows which keep up the fires of life. In them the blood, which returns from every part of the body vitiated by carbon or soot,is purified and sent back to the heart, to be pumped out again by that marvellous organ to supply all the needs of nature. Pure blood is supplied to the most minute and uttermost regions of the body, and these make use of it and its oxygen to warm the body and make up for waste of tissue. The blood, darkened now by carbon, returns to the heart, and is sent thence to the lungs to meet fresh air and be once more purified. You cannot see the red or arterial blood circulating from the heart because it is so light in colour, but you cannot look at hand or arm without noticing the veins in which the black blood is rushing backwards to heart and lungs.
BEDROOM DANGERS.
We often hear of people being found dead in bed. A man or woman does not appear at the breakfast-table, but this gives rise to no concern. “She was rather late up last night,” someone may remark. “Let her rest.”
But when the forenoon slips away and there are still no signs of the sleeper, someone more anxious than the others goes to her bedroom door and taps. No answer. Then alarm becomes more general and the door is forced, to find that poor Miss or Mrs Blank sleeps
“The sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil nor night of waking.”
And so the mourners go about the streets.
It is usually about three or four in the morning that such an accident occurs. This is the truth, but I have never heard anyone wonder why. If you ask a medical man, he will tell you that at this hour the powers of life are at their lowest ebb. This may be correct, but in all such cases as I myself have investigated, I have found the bedroom almost hermetically sealed, and believe that had the window been open and the pure air been circling in the apartment, Miss Blank would not have died.
You see that in a close room nearly all the oxygen is exhausted by four o’clock in the morning, and carbonic acid gas has taken its place. There is barely enough pure air therefore to keep body and soul together, and so the weakly one runs a very great risk. I think that the sleep one gets in such a vitiated atmosphere is of no account and very unrefreshing. It is a poisoned sleep of lethargy, such as that which Greenland bears and other hibernating animals obtain, and which reduces them to living skeletons before they emerge in springtime; but these wild animals are possessed of a strength and a vis naturae that is not granted to human beings.
There is another bedroom danger to which I must briefly allude. If one has eaten too freely before going to bed, or of that which may create fermentation, the stomach gets distended and presses against the heart, causing the dreadful nightmares which, combined with the want of fresh air, may end fatally. Concerning nightmares, I have heard it said that if the wild bull you are chased by overtakes you, or if you do in that terrible dream reach the bottom of the precipice over which you feel yourself falling, you never wake again. There is doubtless truth in this.
It must be obvious, then, to the youngest girl who reads this paper, that we cannot have health if we exclude fresh air from the bedroom. I want you to remember too that fires in rooms use the oxygen up and so do lamps and even candles, and that for this very reason you are better to sleep in total darkness. The dangers of bedrooms are very much increased by putting woollen list around the edges of the door, of making use of that awful and deadly sand or sawdust sausage-looking business either at the foot of the door or on the windows. The want of ventilation in the bedroom is very apt indeed to engender colds and to render the lungs themselves ready for the seeds of consumption to be sown therein. You must understand the physiology of this. It is not so much, then, on account of the extra heat of the bedchamber as that the vitiated air renders the system weak; so a girl that has passed the night in such an apartment is in a fit condition to be attacked by any microbe that happens to be afloat.
THE BEDROOM’S VENTILATION.
First I must inform you that the larger the apartment is the better, because the greater is the space for oxygen. Therefore, the less furniture there is in a bedroom the better, and no curtains should be hung either around the windows or bed, nor should dresses be hung up therein. These all harbour dust, and in the dust lives the microbes of almost any disease you can name. But if the room you occupy is small and low in ceiling, it is ever so much more unhealthy, and ventilation is imperative. Ventilation is very simple. For instance, one pane of glass may be taken out and a jalousied glass-work substituted, or the window may be lifted about six inches, and the lower sash allowed to rest upon a board that quite fills up the open space. The air, you see, thus gets in only between the two sashes, and blows right up towards the roof, thus mingling with the rising gases, and rendering them pure and innocuous. Or the upper sash may be lowered and the space filled up with a piece of framed perforated zinc.
But in summer keep the windows wide open all the time, not a wee bit, mind you, but that would mean a roaring draught, but widely, generously open. Your reward will be a total disappearance of all languor on first getting up, the rose tints on lips and cheeks, brighter eyes, and that calm contented feeling which is never experienced by any but the strong.
SAVING UP FOR A HOLIDAY.
Begin now at once to put by small sums for this. If you don’t think yourself too old to put money in the savings bank, do so by all means, and little by little your fresh air fund will mount up, and how very useful this will be when you do get your summer or autumn holiday time will prove. Try this scheme. Mind that pennies saved result in pounds gained.
NERVOUS AND WEAK.
I am really putting the cart before the horse, because it is in the weakness which causes the nervousness, and the symptoms of this trouble are far too numerous even to name. This ailment is called neurasthenia by medical men, a word compounded of two Greek ones, meaning absence of strength in the nervous. It usually arises from want of proper food, fresh air, and pleasurable exercise. Cycling girls who spurt or scorch are subject to it, because they weaken or stretch their hearts. Overwork won’t induce it, but work and worry will. Eating more than enough at meal-times is a very common cause of neurasthenia, owing to the strain on the internal system to get rid of the superabundance. A girl who is fond of the table is always more or less in a state of fever, especially if she uses much meat, flour puddings and sugar.
In cases of this kind, the ignorant fly to physic and dose themselves with tonics, which are most pernicious. The meals should be, breakfast at eight or earlier, having taken a large glass of hot water half an hour before it. Dinner at half-past twelve to one, a small cup of tea with milk and sugar, but nothing to eat, at five, and supper at eight. A light biscuit or two before going to bed, and a glass of milk will do good if hunger is felt, or any gnawing sensation at the pit of the stomach. You may drink if thirsty between meals, but a mere mouthful of water with dinner is enough.
Monday, 26 September 2011
9 February, 1889 - Answers to Correspondents - Miscellaneous
IDA VILLIERS:- It is not often that we are asked to help thin people to get fat; it is generally the other way. First, we should advise you to sit down and be quite tranquil for at least half an hour after your meals, and to cherish a thankful unrepining loving spirit; and get all the sleep possible. Eat butter, fat meats; take cream, milk, coca, chocolate, bread, potatoes, peas, parsnips, carrots, beetroots and all farinaceous foods; pastry, custards and sugar. Avoid acids and do not tire yourself with exercise. You must remember however that the very slightest thinnest people often become stoutest in middle life.
BLANCHETTE and PENELOPE.:- The peeling of the lower lips in large flakes is often to do with the digestion. You had better consult a doctor. A good lip-salve might help you, bought of a chemist who makes it himself.
BLANCHETTE and PENELOPE.:- The peeling of the lower lips in large flakes is often to do with the digestion. You had better consult a doctor. A good lip-salve might help you, bought of a chemist who makes it himself.
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