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30              . HOUSEKEEPER'S BK.
food of the family, than I should 6em it necessary to be
in selecting any of the other servants.   In large estab-
lishments here is a greater quantity of cookery to be per-
formed, and consequently, a greater quantity of waste is
likely to be caused by unskilful cooks, than there can be
in small families; but even in the latter, I have known con-
siderable waste to be the consequence of saving a few
pounds a year in the wages of a cook. An experienced
cook knows the value of the articles submitted to her
care; and she knows how to turn many things to account,
which a person unacquainted with cooking would throw
away. A good cook knows how to convert the remains of
one dinner into various dishes to form the greater part of
another dinner; and she will also, be more capable than
the other of forwarding her mistress's charitable inten-
tions; for her capability in cooking will enable her to take
advantage of every thing which can be spared from the con-
sumption of the family, to be converted into nourishing
food for the poor, for those of her own class, who have
not the comfort of a home such as she herself enjoys.
The cook who knows how to preserve the pot-liquor of
fresh meat to make soup, will, whenever she boils mutton,
fowls, or rabbits, carefully take off the scum as it rises; and
by adding peas, vegetables to flavour, seasonings and crusts
of bread, she will make some tolerable soup for poor peo-
ple, out of materials which an inexperienced cook would
be very likely to throw away.
   Of the same importance as the cooking, is neatness in
serving the dinner, for there is a vast difference in its ap-
pearance, if it be neatly and properly arranged, in hot
dishes, the vegetables and sauces suitable to the meat, and
they apparently just taken from the fire; there is a vast
difference between a dinner so served, and one a part of
which is either too much or too little cooked, the meat