Page:Indian Cookery and Confectionery.djvu/7

 PREFACE

Human beings are social animals and they more or less love to indulge in some sorts of pleasures and to give the same pleasures to their friends. Cooking gives them the opportunity to indulge in various pleasures of tastes and whenever any one of them tastes something fine he longs to enjoy it along with his friends. In this respect cooking is a fine art and we ought to treat it as one rather than as a means anyhow to fill up the stomach every day, although the vast majority of men and women take the latter view in their daily preparations of food. If by using the same materials or by using a few others in addition which cost but little we can prepare a food more tasteful and at the same time more health-giving, then is there any reason why we should not do so? I have even noticed in some cases that a preparation would have been better bad a lesser quantity of spices, fats or some other materials been used.

The present system of cooking in many provinces of India has lost its old reputation having fallen into the hands of some who do not regard cooking as a fine art and of illiterate and stupid professional cooks of different provinces who having failed in every sphere of life resort to cooking as the only source of livelihood. They follow some stereotyped and defective methods in the preparation of every food. They do not and cannot understand that a different proportion or a