Common Sense in the Household 1

Common Sense in the Household 1

Common Sense in the Household

A Manual of Practical Housewifery

 

Author: Marion Harland

 

 

 

TO MY

 

FELLOW-HOUSEKEEPERS,

 

NORTH, EAST, SOUTH AND WEST, THIS VOLUME,

 

THE GLEANINGS OF MANY YEARS,

 

IS CORDIALLY

 

DEDICATED.

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTORY OF REVISED EDITION.

 

 

It is not yet quite ten years since the publication of “COMMON

SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD. GENERAL RECEIPTS.” In offering the work to

the publishers, under whose able management it has prospered so

wonderfully, I said: “I have written this because I felt that such

a Manual of Practical Housewifery is needed.” That I judged aright,

taking my own experience as a housekeeper as the criterion of the wants

and perplexities of others, is abundantly proved by the circumstance

which calls for this new and revised edition of the book. Through

much and constant use—nearly 100,000 copies having been printed from

them—the stereotype plates have become so worn that the impressions

are faint and sometimes illegible. I gladly avail myself of the

opportunity thus offered to re-read and so far to alter the original

volume as may, in the light of later improvements in the culinary art

and in my understanding of it, make the collection of family receipts

more intelligible and available. Nor have I been able to resist the

temptation to interpolate a few excellent receipts that have come into

my hands at a later period than that of the publication of the last,

and in my estimation, perhaps the most valuable of the “Common Sense

Series,” viz.: “THE DINNER YEAR-BOOK.”

 

I am grateful, also, to the courtesy of my publishers for the privilege

of thanking those to whom this book was, and is dedicated, “My

fellow-housekeepers—North, East, South and West”—for their substantial

endorsement of the work I have done in their behalf. A collection

of the private letters I have received from those who have used the

“General Receipts” would make a volume very nearly as large as this.

If I have, as the writers of these testimonials assure me—“done them

good,”—they have done me more in letting me know that I have not spent

my strength for naught. I acknowledge with pleasure sundry pertinent

suggestions and inquiries which have led me, in this revision, to

examine warily the phraseology of some receipts and to modify these,

I believe, for the better. But, by far, the best “good” done me

through this work has been the conscious sisterhood into which I have

come with the great body of American housewives. This is a benefit

not to be rated by dollars and cents, or measured by time. I hope my

fellow-workers will find their old kitchen-companion, in fresh dress,

yet more serviceable than before, and that their daughters may, at

the close of a second decade, demand new stereotype plates for still

another, and, like this, a progressive edition.

 

MARION HARLAND.

 

_October 1, 1880._

 

 

 

 

INDEX OF GENERAL SUBJECTS.

 

 

PAGE.

Blanc-mange 414

Bread 256

Brandied fruits 463

Butter 251

Cakes 299

Candy 468

Canned fruits 463

—— vegetables 463

Catsups 179

Clean, to, etc. 511

Company 140

Corn bread 283

Creams 432

Custards 432

Drinks 480

Eggs 239

Familiar talk 1

Fish 38

Fritters 403

Fruit, ripe, for dessert 442

Game 147

Gingerbread 330

Ices 432

Ice-cream 432

Icing 301

Jellies 414

Jellies, fruit 459

Meats 84

Milk 251

Nursery, the 511

Pancakes 403

Pickles 469

Pies 337

Preserves 445

Pork 114

Poultry 69

Puddings 371

Salads 187

Sauces for fish and meat 170

—— for puddings 408

Servants 358

Sick-room, the 492

Shell-fish 57

Soap 528

Soups 15

Sundries 517

Tarts 351

Vegetables 197

Vinegars, flavored 179

 

 

 

 

FAMILIAR TALK

 

WITH MY

 

FELLOW-HOUSEKEEPER AND READER.

 

 

A TALK as woman to woman, in which each shall say, “I” and “you,” and

“my dear,” and “you know,” as freely as she pleases. It would not be

a womanly chat if we omitted these forms of __EXPRESSION__. An informal

preface to what I mean shall be an informal book—bristling with “I’s”

all the way through. If said bristles offend the critic’s touch, let

him remember that this work is not prepared for the library, but for

readers who trouble themselves little about editorial “we’s” and the

circumlocutions of literary modesty.

 

I wish it were in my power to bring you, the prospective owner of

this volume, in person, as I do in spirit, to my side on this winter

evening, when the bairnies are “folded like the flocks;” the orders

for breakfast committed to the keeping of Bridget, or Gretchen, or

Chloe, or the plans for the morrow definitely laid in the brain of that

ever-busy, but most independent of women, the housekeeper who “does her

own work.” I should perhaps summon to our cozy conference a very weary

companion—weary of foot, of hand—and I should not deserve to be your

confidant, did I not know how often heart-weary with discouragement;

with much producing of ways and means; with a certain despondent

looking forward to the monotonous grinding of the household machine;

to the certainty, proved by past experience, that toilsome as has been

this day, the morrow will prove yet more abundant in labors, in trials

of strength and nerves and temper. You would tell me what a dreary

problem this of “woman’s work that is never done” is to your fainting

soul. How, try as you may and as you do to be systematic and diligent,

something is always “turning up” in the treadmill to keep you on the

strain. How you often say to yourself, in bitterness of spirit, that

it is a mistake of Christian civilization to educate girls into a love

of science and literature, and then condemn them to the routine of a

domestic drudge. You do not see, you say, that years of scholastic

training will make you a better cook, a better wife or mother. You have

seen the time—nay, many times since assuming your present position—when

you would have exchanged your knowledge of ancient and modern

languages, belles-lettres, music, and natural science, for the skill of

a competent kitchen-maid. The “learning how” is such hard work! Labor,

too, uncheered by encouraging words from mature housewives, unsoftened

by sympathy even from your husband, or your father or brother, or

whoever may be the “one” to whom you “make home lovely.” It may be

that, in utter discouragement, you have made up your mind that you have

“no talent for these things.”

 

I have before me now the picture of a wife, the mother of four

children, who, many years ago, sickened me for all time with that

phrase. In a slatternly morning-gown at four in the afternoon, leaning

back in the laziest and most ragged of rocking-chairs, dust on the

carpet, on the open piano, the mantel, the mirrors, even on her own

hair, she rubbed the soft palm of one hand with the grimy fingers of

the other, and with a sickly-sweet smile whined out—

 

“Now, I am one of the kind who have no talent for such things! The

kitchen and housework and sewing are absolutely hateful to me—utterly

uncongenial to my turn of mind. The height of my earthly ambition is to

have nothing to do but to paint on velvet all day!”

 

I felt then, in the height of my indignant disgust, that there was

propriety as well as wit in the “Spectator’s” suggestion that every

young woman should, before fixing the wedding-day, be compelled by law

to exhibit to inspectors a prescribed number of useful articles as her

outfit—napery, bed-linen, clothing, etc., made by her own hands, and

that it would be wise legislation which should add to these proofs of

her fitness for her new sphere a practical knowledge of housework and cookery.