n in a hundred who has
ever seen and tasted that great rarity--a well-boiled potato."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Examiner_.]

In short, we want common sense in cookery, as in most other things. Food
should be used, and not abused. Much of it is now absolutely wasted,
wasted for want of a little art in cooking it. Food is not only wasted
by bad cooking; but much of it is thrown away which French women would
convert into something savoury and digestible. Health, morals, and
family enjoyments, are all connected with the question of cookery. Above
all, it is the handmaid of Thrift. It makes the most and the best of the
bounties of God. It wastes nothing, but turns everything to account.
Every Englishwoman, whether gentle or simple, ought to be accomplished
in an art which confers so much comfort, health, and wealth upon the
members of her household.

"It appears to me," said Mrs. Margaretta Grey, "that with an increase of
wealth unequally distributed, and a pressure of population, there has
sprung up amongst us a spurious refinement, that cramps the energy and
circumscribes the usefulness of women in the upper class of society. A
lady, to be such, must be a lady, and nothing else.... Ladies dismissed
from the dairy, the confectionery, the store-room, the still-room, the
poultry-yard, the kitchen-garden, and the orchard" [she might have
added, the spinning-wheel], "have hardly yet found for themselves a
sphere equally useful and important in the pursuits of trade and art, to
which to apply their too abundant leisure.

"When, at any time, has society presented, on the one hand, so large an
array of respectably educated individuals, embarrassed for want of a
proper calling, and, on the other, so ponderous a multitude of
untrained, neglected poor, who cannot, without help, rise out of their
misery and degradation? What an obstruction to usefulness and all
eminence of character is that of being too rich, or too genteelly
connected, to work at anything!"[1]

[Footnote 1: _Memoir of John Grey, of Dalston_. p. 290.]

Many intelligent, high-minded ladies, who have felt disgusted at the
idleness to which "society" condemns them, have of late years undertaken
the work of visiting the poor and of nursing--a noble work. But there is
another school of usefulness which stands open to them. Let them study
the art of common cookery, and diffuse the knowledge of it amongst the
people. They will thus do an immense amount of good; and bring down