Wishing you all a . . .

About Cooking . . .

There are but a few things on which health, and happiness depend more than on the manner in which food is cooked. You may make houses enchantingly beautiful, hang them with pictures, have them clean and airy and convenient; but if the stomach is fed with sour bread and burnt meats, it will raise such rebellions that the eyes will see no beauty anywhere. The abundance of splendid material we have in America is in great contrast with the style of cooking most prevalent in our country. How often, in journeys, do we sit down to tables loaded with material, originally of the very best kind, [which] has been so spoiled in the treatment that there is really nothing to eat! . . . . How one longs to show people what might have been done with the raw material out of which all these monstrosities were concocted!

By Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
American Woman's Home: or, Principles of Domestic Science; Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes, chapter 7, Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe.