DESIGNED AS A
SUPPLEMENT
TO HER
TREATISE ON DOMESTIC ECONOMY
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF STREET.
1846.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by
Harper & Brothers,
In the Clerk’s Office of the Southern District of New-York.
iii
The following objects are aimed at in this work:
First, to furnish an original collection of receipts, whichshall embrace a great variety of simple and well-cookeddishes, designed for every-day comfort and enjoyment.
Second, to include in the collection only such receipts ashave been tested by superior housekeepers, and warrantedto be the best. It is not a book made up in any departmentby copying from other books, but entirely from the experienceof the best practical housekeepers.
Third, to express every receipt in language which is short,simple, and perspicuous, and yet to give all directions sominutely as that the book can be kept in the kitchen, andbe used by any domestic who can read, as a guide in everyone of her employments in the kitchen.
Fourth, to furnish such directions in regard to small dinner-partiesand evening company as will enable any younghousekeeper to perform her part, on such occasions, withease, comfort, and success.
Fifth, to present a good supply of the rich and elegantdishes demanded at entertainments, and yet to set forth alarge variety of what is both healthful and good, in connexionwith warnings and suggestions which it is hopedmay avail to promote a more healthful fashion in regardboth to entertainments and to daily table supplies. Nobook of this kind will sell without receipts for the rich articleswhich custom requires, and in furnishing them, thewriter has aimed to follow the example of Providence, whichscatters profusely both good and ill, and combines therewiththe caution alike of experience, revelation, and conscience,“choose ye that which is good, that ye and your seed maylive.”
Sixth, in the work on Domestic Economy, together withivthis, to which it is a Supplement, the writer has attempted tosecure in a cheap and popular form, for American housekeepers,a work similar to an English work which she hasexamined, entitled the Encyclopædia of Domestic Economy,by Thomas Webster and Mrs. Parkes, containing overtwelve hundred octavo pages of closely-printed matter, treatingon every department of Domestic Economy; a workwhich will be found much more useful to English women,who have a plenty of money and well-trained servants, thanto American housekeepers. It is believed that most, in thatwork, which would be of any practical use to Americanhousekeepers, will be found in this work and the DomesticEconomy.
Lastly, the writer has aimed to avoid the defects complainedof by most housekeepers in regard to works of this description,issued in this country, or sent from England, such asthat, in some cases, the receipts are so rich as to be both expensiveand unhealthful; in others, that they are so vaguelyexpressed as to be very imperfect guides; in others, thatthe processes are so elaborate and fussing as to make doublethe work that is needful; and in others, that the topics areso limited that some departments are entirely