Page:A New System of Domestic Cookery (1824 edition).pdf/13



AS the following directions were intended for the conduct of families of the authoress's own daughters, and for the arrangement of their table, so as to unite a good figure with proper economy, she has avoided all excessive luxury, such as essence of ham, and that wasteful expenditure of large quantities of meat for gravy, which so greatly continues to keep up the prices, and is no less injurious to those who eat than to those whose penury obliges them to abstain. Many receipts are given for things which, being in daly use, the mode of preparing them may be supposed too well known to require a place in a cookery-book; yet we rarely meet with butter properly melted, good toast-and-water, or well-made coffee. She makes no apology for minuteness in some articles, or for leaving others unnoticed, because she does not write for professed cooks. This little work would have been a treasure to herself when she first set out in life, and she therefore hopes it may prove useful to others.