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Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Corrections and alterations from the original can be found at the end of the book. The original indexes have been retained, and a new index added which combines the two and corrects the alphabetical order.
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DIRECTIONS FOR COOKERY, IN ITS VARIOUS BRANCHES.
PHILADELPHIA: HENRY CAREY BAIRD, (SUCCESSOR TO E. L. CAREY,) NO. 7 HART'S BUILDING, SIXTH ST. ABOVE CHESTNUT. 1853.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1837, by E. L. CAREY & A. HART, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by HENRY CAREY BAIRD, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON AND CO. PHILADELPHIA. PRINTED BY T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS.
In preparing a new and carefully revised edition of this, my first work on general cookery, I have introduced improvements, corrected errors, and added new receipts, that I trust will, on trial, be found satisfactory. The success of the book (proved by its immense and increasing circulation,) affords conclusive evidence that it has obtained the approbation of a large number of my countrywomen; many of whom have informed me that it has made practical housewives of young ladies who have entered into married life with no other acquirements than a few showy accomplishments. Gentlemen, also, have told me of great improvements in the family-table, after presenting their wives with this manual of domestic cookery; and that, after a morning devoted to the fatigues of business, they no longer find themselves subjected to the annoyance of an ill-dressed dinner.
No man (or woman either) ought to be incapable of distinguishing bad eatables from good ones. Yet, I have heard some few ladies boast of that incapacity, as something meritorious, and declare that they considered the quality, the preparation, and even the taste of food, as things entirely beneath the attention of a rational being; their own minds being always occupied with objects of far greater importance.