Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches, by Eliza Leslie

Published: 10th ed., Philadelphia, E. L. Carey & A. Hart, 1840

Includes how to make liquors, beer, wine; preparations for the sick; and perfumeries

GENERAL CONTENTS:

Part 1
Soups; including those of Fish.
Fish; various ways of dressing.
Shell Fish; Oysters, Lobsters, Crabs, Etc.

Part 2
Beef; including pickling and smoking it.
Veal.
Mutton and Lamb.
Pork; including Bacon, Sausages, Etc.

Part 3
Venison; Hares, Rabbits, Etc.
Poultry and Game.
Gravy and Sauces.
Store Fish Sauces; Catchups, Etc.
Flavoured Vinegars.
Mustards & Pepper.
Vegetables; including Indian Corn, Tomatas, Mushrooms, Etc.

Part 4
Eggs; usual ways of dressing, including Omelets.
Pickling.
Sweetmeats; including Preserves and Jellies

Part 5
Pastry and Puddings; also Pancakes, Dumplings, Custards, Etc., Syllabubs; also Ice Creams and Blanc-mange.

Part 6
Cakes; including various sweet Cakes and Gingerbread.
Warm Cakes for Breakfast and Tea; also, Bread, Yeast, Butter, Cheese, Tea, Coffee, Etc.

Part 7
Domestic Liquors; including home-made Beer, Wines, Shrub, Cordials, Etc.
Preparations for the Sick.
Perfumery.
Miscellaneous Receipts.
Additional Receipts.
Animals used as Butchers' Meat.
Index

The success of her little book entitled "Seventy-five Receipts in Cakes, Pastry, and Sweetmeats." has encouraged the author to attempt a larger and more miscellaneous work on the subject of cookery, comprising as far as practicable whatever is most useful in its various departments; and particularly adapted to the domestic economy of her own country. Designing it as a manual of American housewifery, she has avoided the insertion of any dishes whose ingredients cannot be procured on our side of the Atlantic, and which require for their preparation utensils that are rarely found except in Europe. Also, she has omitted every thing which may not, by the generality of tastes, be considered good of its kind, and well worth the trouble and cost of preparing.

The author has spared no pains in collecting and arranging, perhaps the greatest number of practical and original receipts that have ever appeared in a similar work; flattering herself that she has rendered them so explicit as to be easily understood, and followed, even by inexperienced cooks. The directions are given as minutely as if each receipt was "to stand alone by itself," all references to others being avoided; except in some few instances to the one immediately preceding; it being a just cause of complaint that in some of the late cookery books, the reader, before finishing the article, is desired to search out pages and numbers in remote parts of the volume.

In the hope that her system of cookery may be consulted with equal advantage by families in town and in country, by those whose condition makes it expedient to practise economy, and by others whose circumstances authorize a liberal expenditure, the author sends it to take its chance among the multitude of similar publications, satisfied that it will meet with as much success as it may be found to deserve,--more she has no right to expect.

Philadelphia, April 15th, 1837.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

We recommend to all families that they should keep in the house: a pair of scales, (one of the scales deep enough to hold flour, sugar, &c., conveniently,) and a set of tin measures: as accuracy in proportioning the ingredients is indispensable to success in cookery. It is best to have the scales permanently fixed to a small beam projecting (for instance) from one of the shelves of the store-room. This will preclude the frequent inconvenience of their getting twisted, unlinked, and otherwise out of order; a common consequence of putting them in and out of their box, and carrying them from place to place. The weights (of which there should be a set from two pounds to a quarter of an ounce) ought carefully to be kept in the box, that none of them may be lost or mislaid.

A set of tin measures (with small spouts or lips) from a gallon down to half a jill, will be found very convenient in every kitchen; though common pitchers, bowls, glasses, &c. may be substituted. It is also well to have a set of wooden measures from a bushel to a quarter of a peck.

Let it be remembered, that of liquid measure--

Two jills are half a pint.
Two pints--one quart.
Four quarts--one gallon.
Of dry measure--

Half a gallon is a quarter of a peck.
One gallon--half a peck.
Two gallons--one peck.
Four gallons--half a bushel.
Eight gallons--one bushel.
About twenty-five drops of any thin liquid will fill a common sized tea- spoon.

Four table-spoonfuls or half a jill, will fill a common wine glass.

Four wine glasses will fill a half-pint or common tumbler, or a large coffee-cup.

A quart black bottle holds in reality about a pint and a half.

Of flour, butter, sugar, and most articles used in cakes and pastry, a quart is generally about equal in quantity to a pound avoirdupois, (sixteen ounces.) Avoirdupois is the weight designated throughout this book.

Ten eggs generally weigh one pound before they are broken.

A table-spoonful of salt is generally about one ounce.