Page:Our Philadelphia (Pennell, 1914).djvu/449

Rh Complete Cookery, slie reveals an unfeminine respect for style. "In this as in her Cookery Book," she writes, a dignity expressed in her use of the third person, "she has not scrupled when necessary, to sacrifice the sound to the sense; repeating the same words when no others could be found to express the purport so clearly, and being always more anxious to convey the meaning in such terms as could not be mistaken than to risk obscuring it by attempts at refined phraseology or well-rounded periods." Now and then the temptation was too strong and she fell into alliteration, writing of "ponderous puddings and curdled custards." But this is exceptional. As a rule, in her dry, business-like sentences, it would be impossible to suspect her of philandering with sound, or concerning herself with the pleasure of her readers.

Her subject is one, happily, that can survive the sacrifice. The book is a monument to Philadelphia cookery. She was not so emancipated as to neglect all other kitchens. Recipes for Soup à la Julienne and Mulligatawny, for Bath Buns and Gooseberry Fools, for Pilaus and Curries, are concessions to foreign conventions. Recipes for Oysters and Shad, for Gumbo and Buckwheat Cakes, for Mint Juleps and Sweet Potatoes, for Pumpkins and Mush, show her deference to ideals cultivated by Americans from one State or another. But concessions and deference do not prevent her book—her two books—from being unmistakably Philadelphian:—an undefinable something in the quality and quantity, a definable something in the