The honesty of a cook must be above all suspicion: she must obtain, and (in spite of the numberless temptations, &c. that daily offer to bend her from it) preserve a character of spotless integrity and useful industry,[55-+] remembering that it is the fair price of INDEPENDENCE, which all wish for, but none without it can hope for; only a fool or a madman will be so silly or so crazy as to expect to reap where he has been too idle to sow.
Very few modern-built town-houses have a proper place to preserve provisions in. The best substitute is a HANGING SAFE, which you may contrive to suspend in an airy situation; and when you order meat, poultry, or fish, tell the tradesman when you intend to dress it: he will then have it in his power to serve you with provision that will do him credit, which the finest meat, &c. in the world will never do, unless it has been kept a proper time to be ripe and tender.
If you have a well-ventilated larder in a shady, dry situation, you may make still surer, by ordering in your meat and poultry such a time before you want it as will render it tender, which the finest meat cannot be, unless hung a proper time (see 2d chapter of the Rudiments of Cookery), according to the season, and nature of the meat, &c.; but always, as "_les bons hommes de bouche de France_" say, till _it is_ "_assez mortifiée_."
Permitting this process to proceed to a certain degree renders meat much more easy of solution in the stomach, and for those whose digestive faculties are delicate, it is of the utmost importance that it be attended to with the greatest nicety, for the most consummate skill in the culinary preparation of it will not compensate for the want of attention to this. (Read _obs._ to No. 68.) Meat that is _thoroughly roasted_, or _boiled_, eats much shorter and tenderer, and is in proportion more digestible, than that which is _under_-done.
You will be enabled to manage much better if your employers will make out a BILL OF FARE FOR THE WEEK on the Saturday before: for example, for a family of half a dozen--
_Sunday_ Roast beef (No. 19), and my pudding (No. 554).
_Monday_ Fowl (Nos. 16. 58), what was left of my pudding fried, and warmed in the Dutch oven.