rd
of the whole weight. If we put it into the oven entire, in the usual
manner, we have the thin parts overdone, and the skinny and fibrous
parts utterly dried up, by the application of the amount of heat
necessary to cook the thick portion. Supposing the joint to weigh six
pounds, at thirty cents, and that one-third of the weight is so treated
as to become perfectly useless, we throw away sixty cents. Of a piece of
beef at twenty-five cents a pound, fifty cents' worth is often lost in
bone, fat, and burnt skin.

The fact is, this way of selling and cooking meat in large, gross
portions is of English origin, and belongs to a country where all the
customs of society spring from a class who have no particular occasion
for economy. The practice of minute and delicate division comes from a
nation which acknowledges the need of economy, and has made it a study.
A quarter of lamb in this mode of division would be sold in three nicely
prepared portions. The thick part would be sold by itself, for a neat,
compact little roast; the rib-bones would be artistically separated, and
all the edible matters scraped away would form those delicate dishes of
lamb-chop, which, fried in bread-crumbs to a golden brown, are so
ornamental and so palatable a side-dish; the trimmings which remain
after this division would be destined to the soup-kettle or stew-pan. In
a French market is a little portion for every purse, and the far-famed
and delicately flavored soups and stews which have arisen out of French
economy are a study worth a housekeeper's attention. Not one atom of
food is wasted in the French modes of preparation; even tough animal
cartilages and sinews, instead of appearing burned and blackened in
company with the roast meat to which they happen to be related, are
treated according to their own laws, and come out either in savory
soups, or those fine, clear meat-jellies which form a garnish no less
agreeable to the eye than palatable to the taste.

Whether this careful, economical, practical style of meat-cooking can
ever to any great extent be introduced into our kitchens now is a
question. Our butchers are against it; our servants are wedded to the
old wholesale wasteful ways, which seem to them easier because they are
accustomed to them. A cook who will keep and properly tend a soup-kettle
which shall receive and utilize all that the coarse preparations of the
butcher would require her to trim away, who understands the art of
m