Science in the Kitchen: A Scientific Treatise On Food Substances and Their Dietetic Properties, Together with a Practical Explanation of the Principles of Healthful Cookery, and a Large Number of Original, Palatable, and Wholesome Recipes

of sight and hearing. What we see is gone; nothing remains but the memory, and the same is true of the sweetest sounds which may reach us through the ears. But what we taste is taken into the stomach and what has thus given us brief pleasure through the gratification of the palate, must make work in the alimentary canal for fourteen hours before it is disposed of. VARIETY IN FOOD.--Simplicity of diet should be a point of first consideration with all persons upon whom falls the responsibility of providing the family bills of fare, since the simplest foods are, as a rule, the most healthful. Variety is needed; that is, a judicious mingling of fruits, grains, and vegetables; but the general tendency is to supply our tables with too many kinds and to prepare each dish in the most elaborate manner, until, in many households, the cooking of food has come to be almost the chief end of life. While the preparation of food should be looked upon as of so much importance as to demand the most careful consideration and thought as to its suitability, wholesomeness, nutritive qualities, and digestibility, it should by no means be made to usurp the larger share of one's time, when simpler foods and less labor would afford the partakers equal nourishment and strength. A great variety of foods at one meal exerts a potent influence in creating a love of eating, and is likewise a constant temptation to overeat. Let us have well-cooked, nutritious, and palatable food, and plenty of it; variety from day to day, but not too great a variety at each meal. The prevalent custom of loading the table with a great number of viands, upon occasions when guests are to be entertained in our homes, is one to be deplored, since it is neither conducive to good health nor necessary to good cheer, but on the contrary is still laborious and expensive a practice that many are debarred from social intercourse because they cannot afford to entertain after the fashion of their neighbors. Upon this subject a well-known