Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/183



VERY one at some time or other, needs to give a fine dinner. For the uses of a well-cooked, well-served dinner are very many. It not only satisfies the stomach, without injuring it; but it has higher offices: it promotes good feeling; it cements friendship; it stimulates wit; it cultivates the taste, and in every way it civilizes and refines man.

Man is defined by philosophers as a cooking animal, to distinguish him from the brute species. Using this definition, I say further that the more civilized the man, and the higher his place in the human species, the more scientific and tasteful his cooking. In fact, a man is known by his dinner.

There are a great many people who know a good dinner when they eat it; but there are very few who know how to prepare, or even to order one. This most important matter is left too often to the judgment of ignorant cooks, or, perhaps—which is only a little better—to skilful cooks, who know very little of one's tastes or temperament, or physical constitution. Some people seem to think it not worth their while to give attention to their eating—something beneath the notice of such wise and busy people as they—I should call them foolish and wasteful of themselves. Happily for America, however, these silly people are growing fewer and fewer among the cultivated classes. It is beginning to be generally understood that a man in the end loses more time by spending only ten or fifteen minutes at his dinner than if he gave to it the deliberation of an hour or two, or even more.

To get up a good dinner requires thought and attention. But what good wife would begrudge these to increase the health and happiness of her husband and children? If she thinks the duty beneath her, she is to be pitied. In preparing the dinner (through her servants, of course, if she is able to have them) she has a fine opportunity to show her taste as well as her affection. For there is no more gratifying sight to a cultivated eye, than a beautifully-arranged and well-ordered dinner table: nothing can reflect more credit on the taste of the mistress of a house.

With the view to aid the readers of in preparing their next fine dinner, I shall give some bills of fare with general directions. Of course, the preparation of some of the dishes I name requires skill in the art of cookery; but the necessary skill may be acquired by any one who is willing to give time and attention to the subject. Moreover, I am bold enough to think that, perhaps, my