"The universe cannot produce a cook who knows how to do every branch of cookery well, be his genius as great as possible."--Vide the _Cook's Cookery_, 8vo. page 40.
THE BEST RULE FOR MARKETING is to _pay_ READY MONEY for every thing, and to deal with the most respectable tradesmen in your neighbourhood.
If you leave it to their integrity to supply you with a good article, at the fair market price, you will be supplied with better provisions, and at as reasonable a rate as those bargain-hunters, who trot "around, around, around about" a market, till they are trapped to buy some _unchewable_ old poultry, _tough_ tup-mutton, _stringy_ cow beef, or _stale_ fish, at a very little less than the price of prime and proper food. With _savings_ like these they toddle home in triumph, cackling all the way, like a goose that has got ankle-deep into good luck.
All the skill of the most accomplished cook will avail nothing, unless she is furnished with PRIME PROVISIONS. The best way to procure these is to deal with shops of established character: you may appear to pay, perhaps, ten _per cent._ more than you would, were you to deal with those who pretend to sell cheap, but you would be much more than in that proportion better served.
Every trade has its tricks and deceptions: those who follow them can deceive you if they please; and they are too apt to do so, if you provoke the exercise of their over-reaching talent.[61-*]
Challenge them to a game at "_Catch who can_," by entirely relying on your own judgment; and you will soon find that nothing but very long experience can make you equal to the combat of marketing to the utmost advantage.
Before you go to market, look over your larder, and consider well what things are wanting, especially on a Saturday. No well-regulated family can suffer a disorderly caterer to be jumping in and out to the chandler's shop on a Sunday morning.
Give your directions to your assistants, and begin your business early in the morning, or it will be impossible to have the dinner ready at the time it is ordered.
To be half an hour after the time is such a frequent fault, that there is the more merit in being ready at the appointed hour. This is a difficult task, and in the best-regulated family you can only be sure of your time by proper arrangements.