The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking by Helen Campbell

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THE
EASIEST WAY
IN
HOUSEKEEPING AND COOKING.

Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes
BY
HELEN CAMPBELL,

AUTHOR OF "IN FOREIGN KITCHENS," "MRS. HERNDON'S INCOME," "PRISONERS OF
POVERTY,", "SOME PASSAGES IN THE PRACTICE OF DR. MARTHA SCARBOROUGH,"
"WOMEN WAGE-EARNERS," ETC., ETC.

"If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly."

BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY,
1903.

_Copyright, 1893,_
BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.

University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

A Book for Agnes L.V.W.

AND THE SOUTHERN GIRLS WHO STUDIED
WITH HER.

PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION.

The little book now revised and sent out with some slight additions,
remains substantially the same as when first issued in 1880. In the midst
of always increasing cookery-books, it has had a firm constituency of
friends, especially in the South, where its necessity was first made
plain. To enlarge it in any marked degree would violate the original plan,
for which the critic will please read the pages headed "Introductory,"
where he or she will find full explanation of the growth and purpose of
the book. Whoever desires more receipts and more elaborate forms of
preparation must look for their sources in the bibliography at the end,
since their introduction in these pages would practically nullify the
title, proved true by years of testing at the hands of inexperienced
housekeepers, whose warm words have long been very pleasant to the author
of "The Easiest Way."

NEW YORK, June, 1893.

CONTENTS.

PART FIRST.

PAGE

INTRODUCTORY 5

CHAPTER.

I. THE HOUSE: SITUATION AND ARRANGEMENT 11
II. THE HOUSE: ITS VENTILATION 19
III. DRAINAGE AND WATER-SUPPLY 27
IV. THE DAY'S WORK 35
V. FIRES, LIGHTS, AND THINGS TO WORK WITH 45
VI. WASHING-DAY AND CLEANING IN GENERAL 54
VII. THE BODY AND ITS COMPOSITION 68
VIII. FOOD AND ITS LAWS 73
IX. THE RELATIONS OF FOOD TO HEALTH 80
X. THE CHEMISTRY OF ANIMAL FOOD 90
XI. THE CHEMISTRY OF VEGETABLE FOOD 100
XII. CONDIMENTS AND BEVERAGES 110

PART SECOND.

STOCK AND SEASONING 119
SOUPS 122
FISH 131
MEATS 144
POULTRY 161
SAUCES AND SALADS 173
EGGS AND BREAKFAST DISHES 180
TEA, COFFEE, &C 193
VEGETABLES 197
BREAD AND BREAKFAST CAKES 208
CAKE 221
PASTRY AND PIES 232
PUDDINGS, BOILED AND BAKED 238
CUSTARDS, CREAMS, JELLIES, &C 245
CANNING AND PRESERVING 252
PICKLES AND CATCHUPS 257
CANDIES 259
SICK-ROOM COOKERY 261
HOUSEHOLD HINTS 270
HINTS TO TEACHERS 280
LESSONS FOR PRACTICE CLASS 282
TWENTY TOPICS FOR CLASS USE 285
LIST OF AUTHORITIES REFERRED TO 286
EXAMINATION QUESTIONS 287
BIBLIOGRAPHY 288
INDEX 289

_Introductory._

That room or toleration for another "cook-book" can exist in the public
mind, will be denied at once, with all the vigor to be expected from a
people overrun with cook-books, and only anxious to relegate the majority
of them to their proper place as trunk-linings and kindling-material. The
minority, admirable in plan and execution, and elaborate enough to serve
all republican purposes, are surely sufficient for all the needs that have
been or may be. With Mrs. Cornelius and Miss Parloa, Marion Harland and
Mrs. Whitney, and innumerable other trustworthy authorities, for all
every-day purposes, and Mrs. Henderson for such festivity as we may at
times desire to make, another word is not only superfluous but absurd; in
fact, an outrage on common sense, not for one instant to be justified.

Such was my own attitude and such my language hardly a year ago; yet that
short space of time has shown me, that, whether the public admit the
claim, or no, one more cook-book MUST BE. And this is why:--

A year of somewhat exceptional experience--that involved in building up
several cooking-schools in a new locality, demanding the most thorough
and minute system to assure their success and permanence--showed the
inadequacies of any existing hand-books, and the necessities to be met in
making a new one. Thus the present book has a twofold character, and
represents, not only the ordinary receipt or cook book, usable in any part
of the country and covering all ordinary household needs, but covers the
questions naturally arising in every lesson given, and ending in
statements of the most necessary points in household science. There are
large books designed to cover this ground, and excellent of their kind,
but so cumbrous in form and execution as to daunt the average reader.

Miss Corson's "Cooking-School Text-Book" commended itself for its
admirable plainness and fullness of detail, but was almost at once found
impracticable as a system for my purposes; her dishes usually requiring
the choicest that the best city market could afford, and taking for
granted also a taste for French flavorings not yet common outside of our
large cities, and to no great extent within them. To utilize to the best
advantage the food-resources of whatever spot one might be in, to give
information on a hundred points suggested by each lesson, yet having no
place in the ordinary cook-book, in short, _to teach household science as
well as cooking_, became my year's work; and it is that year's work which
is incorporated in these pages. Beginning with Raleigh, N.C., and lessons
given in a large school there, it included also a seven-months' course at
the Deaf and Dumb Institute, and regular classes for ladies. Straight
through, in those classes, it became my business to say, "This is no
infallible system, warranted to give the whole art of cooking in twelve
lessons. All I can do for you is to lay down clearly certain fixed
principles; to show you how to economize thoroughly, yet get a better
result than by the expenditure of perhaps much more material. Before our
course ends, you will have had performed before you every essential
operation in cooking, and will know, so far as I can make you know,
prices, qualities, constituents, and physiological effects of every type
of food. Beyond this, the work lies in your own hands."

Armed with manuals,--American, English, French,--bent upon systematizing
the subject, yet finding none entirely adequate, gradually, and in spite
of all effort to the contrary, I found that my teaching rested more and
more on my own personal experience as a housekeeper, both at the South and
at the North. The mass of material in many books was found confusing and
paralyzing, choice seeming impossible when a dozen methods were given. And
for the large proportion of receipts, directions were so vague that only a
trained housekeeper could be certain of the order of combination, or
results when combined. So from the crowd of authorities was gradually
eliminated a foundation for work; and on that foundation has risen a
structure designed to serve two ends.

For the young housekeeper, beginning with little or no knowledge, but
eager to do and know the right thing, not alone for kitchen but for the
home as a whole, the list of topics touched upon in Part I. became
essential. That much of the knowledge compressed there should have been
gained at home, is at once admitted: but, unfortunately, few homes give
it; and the aim has been to cover the ground concisely yet clearly and
attractively. As to Part II., it does not profess to be the whole art of
cooking, but merely the line of receipts most needed in the average
family, North or South. Each receipt has been tested personally by the
writer, often many times; and each one is given so minutely that failure
is well-nigh impossible, if the directions are intelligently followed. A
few distinctively Southern dishes are included, but the ground covered has
drawn from all sources; the series of excellent and elaborate manuals by
well-known authors having contributed here and there, but the majority of
rules being, as before said, the result of years of personal experiment,
or drawn from old family receipt-books.

To facilitate the work of the teacher, however, a scheme of lessons is
given at the end, covering all that can well be taught in the ordinary
school year: each lesson is given with page references to the receipts
employed, while a shorter and more compact course is outlined for the use
of classes for ladies. A list of topics is also given for school use; it
having been found to add greatly to the interest of the course to write
each week the story of some ingredient in the lesson for the day, while a
set of questions, to be used at periodical intervals, fixes details, and
insures a certain knowledge of what progress has been made. The course
covers the chemistry and physiology of food, as well as an outline of
household science in general, and may serve as a text-book wherever such
study is introduced. It is hoped that this presentation of the subject
will lessen the labor necessary in this new field, though no text-book can
fully take the place of personal enthusiastic work.

That training is imperatively demanded for rich and poor alike, is now
unquestioned; but the mere taking a course of cooking-lessons alone does
not meet the need in full. The present book aims to fill a place hitherto
unoccupied; and precisely the line of work indicated there has been found
the only practical method in a year's successful organization of schools
at various points. Whether used at home with growing girls, in
cooking-clubs, in schools, or in private classes, it is hoped that the
system outlined and the authorities referred to will stimulate interest,
and open up a new field of work to many who have doubted if the food
question had any interest beyond the day's need, and who have failed to
see that nothing ministering to the best life and thought of this
wonderful human body could ever by any chance be rightfully called "common
or unclean." We are but on the threshold of the new science. If these
pages make the way even a little plainer, the author will have
accomplished her full purpose, and will know that in spite of appearances
there is "room for one more."

HELEN CAMPBELL.

_THE EASIEST WAY._

CHAPTER I.

THE HOUSE: SITUATION AND ARRANGEMENT.

From the beginning it must be understood that what is written here applies
chiefly to country homes. The general principles laid down are applicable
with equal force to town or city life; but as a people we dwell mostly in
the country, and, even in villages or small towns, each house is likely to
have its own portion of land about it, and to look toward all points of
the compass, instead of being limited to two, as in city blocks. Of the
comparative advantages or disadvantages of city or country life, there is
no need to speak here. Our business is simply to give such details as may
apply to both, but chiefly to the owners of moderate incomes, or salaried
people, whose expenditure must always be somewhat limited. With the
exterior of such homes, women at present have very little to do; and the
interior also is thus far much in the hands of architects, who decide for
general prettiness of effect, rather than for the most convenient
arrangement of space. The young bride, planning a home, is resolved upon a
bay-window, as large a parlor as possible, and an effective spare-room;
but, having in most cases no personal knowledge of work, does not
consider whether kitchen and dining-room are conveniently planned, or not,
and whether the arrangement of pantries and closets is such that both
rooms must be crossed a hundred times a day, when a little foresight might
have reduced the number certainly by one-half, perhaps more.

Inconvenience can, in most cases, be remedied; but unhealthfulness or
unwholesomeness of location, very seldom: and therefore, in the beginning,
I write that ignorance is small excuse for error, and that every one able
to read at all, or use common-sense about any detail of life, is able to
form a judgment of what is healthful or unhealthful. If no books are at
hand, consult the best physician near, and have his verdict as to the
character of the spot in which more or less of your life in this world
will be spent, and which has the power to affect not only your mental and
bodily health, but that of your children. Because your fathers and mothers
have been neglectful of these considerations, is no reason why you should
continue in ignorance; and the first duty in making a home is to consider
earnestly and intelligently certain points.

Four essentials are to be thought of in the choice of any home; and their
neglect, and the ignorance which is the foundation of this neglect, are
the secret of not only the chronic ill-health supposed to be a necessity
of the American organization, but of many of the epidemics and mysterious
diseases classed under the head of "visitations of Providence."

These essentials are: a wholesome situation, good ventilation, good
drainage, and a dry cellar. Rich or poor, high or low, if one of these be
disregarded, the result will tell, either on your own health or on that of
your family. Whether palace or hut, brown-stone front or simple wooden
cottage, the law is the same. As a rule, the ordinary town or village is
built upon low land, because it is easier to obtain a water-supply from
wells and springs. In such a case, even where the climate itself may be
tolerably healthy, the drainage from the hills at hand, or the nearness of
swamps and marshes produced by the same cause, makes a dry cellar an
impossibility; and this shut-in and poisonous moisture makes malaria
inevitable. The dwellers on low lands are the pill and patent-medicine
takers; and no civilized country swallows the amount of tonics and bitters
consumed by our own.

If possible, let the house be on a hill, or at least a rise of ground, to
secure the thorough draining-away of all sewage and waste water. Even in a
swampy and malarious country, such a location will insure all the health
possible in such a region, if the other conditions mentioned are
faithfully attended to.

Let the living-rooms and bedrooms, as far as may be, have full sunshine
during a part of each day; and reserve the north side of the house for
store-rooms, refrigerator, and the rooms seldom occupied. Do not allow
trees to stand so near as to shut out air or sunlight; but see that, while
near enough for beauty and for shade, they do not constantly shed
moisture, and make twilight in your rooms even at mid-day. Sunshine is the
enemy of disease, which thrives in darkness and shadow. Consumption or
scrofulous disease is almost inevitable in the house shut in by trees,
whose blinds are tightly closed lest some ray of sunshine fade the
carpets; and over and over again it has been proved that the first
conditions of health are, abundant supply of pure air, and free admission
of sunlight to every nook and cranny. Even with imperfect or improper
food, these two allies are strong enough to carry the day for health; and,
when the three work in harmony, the best life is at once assured.

If the house must be on the lowlands, seek a sandy or gravelly soil; and
avoid those built over clay beds, or even where clay bottom is found under
the sand or loam. In the last case, if drainage is understood, pipes may
be so arranged as to secure against any standing water; but, unless this
is done, the clammy moisture on walls, and the chill in every closed room,
are sufficient indication that the conditions for disease are ripe or
ripening. The only course in such case, after seeking proper drainage, is,
first, abundant sunlight, and, second, open fires, which will act not only
as drying agents, but as ventilators and purifiers. Aim to have at least
one open fire in the house. It is not an extravagance, but an essential,
and economy may better come in at some other place.

Having settled these points as far as possible,--the question of
water-supply and ventilation being left to another chapter,--it is to be
remembered that the house is not merely a place to be made pleasant for
one's friends. They form only a small portion of the daily life; and the
first consideration should be: Is it so planned that the necessary and
inevitable work of the day can be accomplished with the least expenditure
of force? North and South, the kitchen is often the least-considered room
of the house; and, so long as the necessary meals are served up, the
difficulties that may have hedged about such serving are never counted. At
the South it is doubly so, and necessarily; old conditions having made
much consideration of convenience for servants an unthought-of thing.
With a throng of unemployed women and children, the question could only
be, how to secure some small portion of work for each one; and in such
case, the greater the inconveniences, the more chance for such employment.
Water could well be half a mile distant, when a dozen little darkies had
nothing to do but form a running line between house and spring; and so
with wood and kindling and all household necessities.

To-day, with the old service done away with once for all, and with a set
of new conditions governing every form of work, the Southern woman faces
difficulties to which her Northern or Western sister is an utter stranger;
faces them often with a patience and dignity beyond all praise, but still
with a hopelessness of better things, the necessary fruit of ignorance.
Old things are passed away, and the new order is yet too unfamiliar for
rules to have formulated and settled in any routine of action. While there
is, at the North, more intuitive and inherited sense of how things should
be done, there is on many points an almost equal ignorance, more
especially among the cultivated classes, who, more than at any period of
woman's history, are at the mercy of their servants. Every science is
learned but domestic science. The schools ignore it; and, indeed, in the
rush toward an early graduation, there is small room for it.

"She can learn at home," say the mothers. "She will take to it when her
time comes, just as a duck takes to water," add the fathers; and the
matter is thus dismissed as settled.

In the mean time the "she" referred to--the average daughter of average
parents in both city and country--neither "learns at home," nor "takes to
it naturally," save in exceptional cases; and the reason for this is
found in the love, which, like much of the love given, is really only a
higher form of selfishness. The busy mother of a family, who has fought
her own way to fairly successful administration, longs to spare her
daughters the petty cares, the anxious planning, that have helped to eat
out her own youth; and so the young girl enters married life with a vague
sense of the dinners that must be, and a general belief that somehow or
other they come of themselves. And so with all household labor. That to
perform it successfully and skillfully, demands not only training, but the
best powers one can bring to bear upon its accomplishment, seldom enters
the mind; and the student, who has ended her course of chemistry or
physiology enthusiastically, never dreams of applying either to every-day
life.

This may seem a digression; and yet, in the very outset, it is necessary
to place this work upon the right footing, and to impress with all
possible earnestness the fact, that Household Science holds every other
science in tribute, and that only that home which starts with this
admission and builds upon the best foundation the best that thought can
furnish, has any right to the name of "home." The swarms of drunkards, of
idiots, of insane, of deaf and dumb, owe their existence to an ignorance
of the laws of right living, which is simply criminal, and for which we
must be judged; and no word can be too earnest, which opens the young
girl's eyes to the fact that in her hands lie not alone her own or her
husband's future, but the future of the nation. It is hard to see beyond
one's own circle; but if light is sought for, and there is steady resolve
and patient effort to do the best for one's individual self, and those
nearest one, it will be found that the shadow passes, and that progress is
an appreciable thing.

Begin in your own home. Study to make it not only beautiful, but perfectly
appointed. If your own hands must do the work, learn every method of
economizing time and strength. If you have servants, whether one or more,
let the same laws rule. It is not easy, I admit; no good thing is: but
there is infinite reward for every effort. Let no failure discourage, but
let each one be only a fresh round in the ladder all must climb who would
do worthy work; and be sure that the end will reward all pain, all
self-sacrifice, and make you truly the mistresses of the home for which
every woman naturally and rightfully hopes, but which is never truly hers
till every shade of detail in its administration has been mastered.

The house, then, is the first element of home to be considered and
studied; and we have settled certain points as to location and
arrangement. This is no hand-book of plans for houses, that ground being
thoroughly covered in various books,--the titles of two or three of which
are given in a list of reference-books at the end. But, whether you build
or buy, see to it that your kitchens and working-rooms are well lighted,
well aired, and of good size, and that in the arrangement of the kitchen
especially, the utmost convenience becomes the chief end. Let sink,
pantries, stove or range, and working-space for all operations in cooking,
be close at hand. The difference between a pantry at the opposite end of
the room, and one opening close to the sink, for instance, may seem a
small matter; but when it comes to walking across the room with every dish
that is washed, the steps soon count up as miles, and in making even a
loaf of bread, the time and strength expended in gathering materials
together would go far toward the thorough kneading, which, when added to
the previous exertion, makes the whole operation, which might have been
only a pleasure, a burden and an annoyance.

Let, then, stove, fuel, water, work-table, and pantries be at the same end
of the kitchen, and within a few steps of one another, and it will be
found that while the general labor of each day must always be the same,
the time required for its accomplishment will be far less, under these
favorable conditions. The successful workman,--the type-setter, the
cabinet-maker, or carpenter,--whose art lies in the rapid combination of
materials, arranges his materials and tools so as to be used with the
fewest possible movements; and the difference between a skilled and
unskilled workman is not so much the rate of speed in movement, as in the
ability to make each motion tell. The kitchen is the housekeeper's
workshop; and, in the chapter on _House-work_, some further details as to
methods and arrangements will be given.

CHAPTER II.

THE HOUSE: VENTILATION.

Having settled the four requisites in any home, and suggested the points
to be made in regard to the first one,--that of wholesome
situation,--_Ventilation_ is next in order. Theoretically, each one of us
who has studied either natural philosophy or physiology will state at
once, with more or less glibness, the facts as to the atmosphere, its
qualities, and the amount of air needed by each individual; practically
nullifying such statement by going to bed in a room with closed windows
and doors, or sitting calmly in church or public hall, breathing over and
over again the air ejected from the lungs all about,--practice as cleanly
and wholesome as partaking of food chewed over and over by an
indiscriminate crowd.

Now, as to find the Reason Why of all statements and operations is our
first consideration, the familiar ground must be traversed again, and the
properties and constituents of air find place here. It is an old story,
and, like other old stories accepted by the multitude, has become almost
of no effect; passive acceptance mentally, absolute rejection physically,
seeming to be the portion of much of the gospel of health. "Cleanliness is
next to godliness," is almost an axiom. I am disposed to amend it, and
assert that cleanliness _is_ godliness, or a form of godliness. At any
rate, the man or woman who demands cleanliness without and within, this
cleanliness meaning pure air, pure water, pure food, must of necessity
have a stronger body and therefore a clearer mind (both being nearer what
God meant for body and mind) than the one who has cared little for law,
and so lived oblivious to the consequences of breaking it.

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