Excerpt from The Kenton Cook-Book
I have been requested by some fair women of Kenton to contribute a preface to a cook-book that is to aid in its sale the building of an Episcopal Church. I could as well be asked to put up a prayer, or preach a sermon, in the church after it is dedicated. Nevertheless I comply.
It has been tersely said by a French scientist that man is to be distinguished from other animals by the fact that he cooks. I cannot say that this is correct, for cooking does not come, like Dogberry"s reading and writing, by nature: and so far as our instinctive nature goes we share it with the buzzard. This scavenger leaves the sun to do its cooking, and we let decay go far enough to make meat tender, before we add the artificial process of cooking to complete the work. That definition of man - that he is a laughing animal - is better, for we share that with the dog. The dog is nobler than the buzzard; in many respects it is nobler than man. True, the dog laughs with his tail, and man with his mouth. But all extremes meet, and from the mouths of some men to the tails of all dogs is no great distance. However, whether we are cooking animals or not, cooking has come in the evolution of humanity to be a necessity. We can not feed upon the raw material, although the latest reach of science in that direction is to fetch us very close to uncooked nature. The doctors prescribe raw steaks for invalids, while the canvass-back ducks are merely dressed and carried through the kitchen to the table, when perfectly prepared for the culinated taste of epicures.
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