Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery: A Manual of Cheap and Wholesome Diet

difficulty in giving directions in cookery-books, and in understanding them when given, is the insuperable one of avoiding vague expressions. For instance, suppose we read, "Take two onions, one carrot, one turnip, and one head of celery,"--what does this mean? It will be found practically that these directions vary considerably according to the neighbourhood or part of the country in which we live. For instance, so much depends upon where we take our head of celery from. Suppose we bought our head of celery in Bond Street or the Central Arcade in Covent Garden Market on the one hand, or off a barrow in the Mile End Road on the other. Again, onions vary so much in size that we cannot draw any hard-and-fast line between a little pickling onion no bigger than a marble and a Spanish onion as big as a baby's head. It would be possible to be very precise and say, "Take so many ounces of celery, or so many pounds of carrot, but practically we cannot turn the kitchen into a chemist's shop. Cooks, whether told to use celery in heads or ounces, would act on guess-work just the same. What are absolutely essential are two things--common sense and experience. Again, practically, we must avoid giving too many ingredients. Novices in the art of cooking are, of course, unable to distinguish between those vegetables that are absolutely essential and those added to give a slight extra flavour, but which make very little difference to the soup whether they are added or not. We are often directed to add a few leaves of tarragon, or chervil, or a handful of sorrel. Of course, in a large kitchen, presided over by a Francatelli, these are easily obtainable; but in ordinary private houses, and in most parts of the country, they are not only unobtainable but have never even been heard of at the greengrocer's shop. In making soups, as a rule, the four vegetables essential are, onion, celery, carrot and turnip; and we place them in their order of merit. In making vegetarian soup it is very