OCR Text |
Show COOKING FOR GIRLS. <br><br> During last winter, the cooking-school mania raged in Philadelphia, and one or two cooking-clubs of little girls, of from ten to fifteen years of age, were formed, an elder sister usually acting as teacher. <br><br> Saturday afternoons was chosen as cooking day, and no fancy ball was ever looked forward to with more zest. The kitchen of each house in town was given up to the young artistes, who came with hair tucked under caps, bare arms, and big white bibs.<br><br> Each brought materials for one dish for lunch. The dishes were generally very simple; biscuits, a cutlet, a salad, chocolate, a meringue, etc. The meal was cooked, and the table arranged and served by the girls. When they sat down after their labors to enjoy the first meal they had ever prepared, cooking was elevated in their minds, not only to a fine art, but to one of the delights of life.<br><br> In our grandmother's day, no woman was thought fit for marriage or the control of a family who could not cook a meal with her own hands. As luxury increased, American women left their kitchen in possession of ignorant servants, but during the last ten years, they have gained in wisdom, and have gone back to the old fashioned faith of the importance to every woman of a knowledge of housekeeping in all its details.<br><br> It is more necessary that a young girl who may someday be a wife and mother should understand why bad drainage and bad cookery is injurious to the lungs and stomach than for her to understand the higher mathematics, or to embroider pre-Raphaelite [?] foot rests. Hence, cooking-schools are established in most of our large cities, and the papers publish columns of fresh recipes side by side with the news from Europe.<br><br> But no tuitions in schools, or book-counsels can make a cook. The skilful hand and nice taste must come from actual practice, and an hour or two a week in the kitchen will be to a school-girl only a pleasant change of amusement, and give her knowledge of life-long service to her and those dependent on her. |