PREPACE.

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The knowledge of cookery (now admitted on all sides to be a
most important branch of a woman’s education) is daily obtaining
more attention, and there are in many of the large towns well-estab-
lished and supported schools teaching cookery by theory and prac-
tice. Cookery is now accepted as both a science and an art, and
during the past few years a general recognition of the fact that
the work of cooking—upon which depends so much of the comfort
and, in fact, the happiness of existence—cannot be successfully car-
ried on in a haphazard or in a “hit-or-miss”’ fashion. The interests
imperilled are too serious and the results of failures too grave.

The recipes given are from the very best sources and thor-
oughly tested, some from a series of practical lessons given at the
South Kensington National Training School of Cookery, London;
others dedicated to the Right Honourable The Earl of Shaftesbury
by the famous French chef, Alexis Soyer, and others, handed down
in families, old-fashioned, but really good. These recipes are from
the Mother Country, France, India and Spain, and the School of
Cookery, Dundee, Scotland.

The recipes are planned with the view of filling a want which
is needed in many households—meaning a small handbook for cook-
ing by gas—containing correct and concisely worded rules arranged
in such a manner as to be interesting and instructive to school girl
and bride, bachelor and matron.