Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches

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Title: Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches
Author: Eliza Leslie
Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9624]
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIRECTIONS
FOR COOKERY ***
Produced by Digital & Multimedia Center, Michigan State University
Libraries; Steve Schulze, and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team.
DIRECTIONS FOR COOKERY, IN ITS VARIOUS BRANCHES.
BY
MISS LESLIE.
TENTH EDITION, WITH IMPROVEMENTS AND
SUPPLEMENTARY RECEIPTS.
1840.
PREFACE
The success of her little book entitled "Seventy-five Receipts in Cakes,
Pastry, and Sweetmeats." has encouraged the author to attempt a larger
and more miscellaneous work on the subject of cookery, comprising as
far as practicable whatever is most useful in its various departments;
and particularly adapted to the domestic economy of her own country.
Designing it as a manual of American housewifery, she has avoided the
insertion of any dishes whose ingredients cannot be procured on our
side of the Atlantic, and which require for their preparation utensils that
are rarely found except in Europe. Also, she has omitted every thing
which may not, by the generality of tastes, be considered good of its
kind, and well worth the trouble and cost of preparing.
The author has spared no pains in collecting and arranging, perhaps the
greatest number of practical and original receipts that have ever
appeared in a similar work; flattering herself that she has rendered them
so explicit as to be easily understood, and followed, even by
inexperienced cooks. The directions are given as minutely as if each
receipt was "to stand alone by itself," all references to others being
avoided; except in some few instances to the one immediately

preceding; it being a just cause of
complaint that in some of the late
cookery books, the reader, before finishing the article, is desired to
search out pages and numbers in remote parts of the volume.
In the hope that her system of cookery may be consulted with equal
advantage by families in town and in country, by those whose condition
makes it expedient to practise economy, and by others whose
circumstances authorize a liberal expenditure, the author sends it to
take its chance among the multitude of similar
publications, satisfied
that it will meet with as much success as it may be found to
deserve,--more she has no right to expect.
Philadelphia, April 15th, 1837.
INTRODUCTORY HINTS.
WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.
We recommend to all families that they should keep in the house: a pair
of scales, (one of the scales deep enough to hold flour, sugar, &c.,
conveniently,) and a set of tin measures: as accuracy in proportioning
the ingredients is indispensable to success in cookery. It is best to have
the scales permanently fixed to a small beam projecting (for instance)
from one of the shelves of the store-room. This will preclude the
frequent inconvenience of their getting twisted, unlinked, and otherwise
out of order; a common consequence of putting them in and out of their
box, and carrying them from place to place. The weights (of which
there should be a set from two pounds to a quarter of an ounce) ought
carefully to be kept in the box, that none of them may be lost or
mislaid.
A set of tin measures (with small spouts or lips) from a gallon down to
half a jill, will be found very convenient in every kitchen; though
common pitchers, bowls, glasses, &c. may be substituted. It is also well
to have a set of wooden measures from a bushel to a quarter of a peck.
Let it be remembered, that of liquid measure--

Two jills are half a pint.
Two pints--one quart.
Four quarts--one
gallon.
Of dry measure--
Half a gallon is a quarter of a peck.
One gallon--half