Imperative Cooking: brewis
n•Autprou `TO rear a healthy progeny in ways of piety and usefulness: to preside over the family and regulate the income allotted to its maintenance: to make home the sweet refuge of a husband fatigued by intercourse with the jarring world: these, these are woman's duties. Of such a woman, one may truly say, "Happy the man who can call her his wife. Blessed are the children who call her mother." ' In particular, `The direction of the table is no inconsiderable branch of a lady's concern, as it involves judgment in expend- iture; respectability of appearance; and the comfort of her husband and those who partake their hospitality. She is the agent for good of that benevolent Being, who placed her on earth to fulfil such sacred obligations, not to waste the talents com- mitted to her charge.'
The cookery books of the 19th century are full of morality, emphasising the vir- tues of economy, hard work, skill, service, hospitality and charity. In contrast the popular cookery books of today fall over themselves to show how cooking can be got through without any of those virtues. It is not that they disapprove of the particular virtues and roles praised 100-150 years ago, and seek to replace them with a more `modern' morality and division of-duties, it is that, the odd feminist whine apart, there is next to no morality at all in contempor- ary popular writing on food.
Many hosts offering dinner are still hospitable and generous (though generos- ity is under attack from the 'turn' system: `Surely they came to us last time' or worse, `When you think what we gave them and compare . . .'), and certainly those cooks who subscribe to the imperative spirit recognise that food processors do not make work and skill any the less necessary. But what of charity?
The book quoted had no doubt: it contains a special section 'Cookery for the poor'. This was not advice to the poor on how to feed themselves but to the middle classes on how to cook for the poor: 'a few hints to enable every family to assist the poor of -their neighbourhood at a very trivial expense. . . . A very good meal may be bestowed in a thing called brewis. Cut a very thick upper crust of bread, and put it into the pot where salt beef is boiling; it will attract some of the fat and when swelled out, will be no unpalatable dish to those who rarely taste meat. . . . In every family there is some superfluity; and if it be prepared with cleanliness and care, the benefit will be very great. . . . I found, in a time of scarcity, ten or 15 gallons of soup could be dealt out weekly . . . . If in the villages about London, abounding with opulent families, ten gallons were made to ten gentlemen's houses, there would be a hundred gallons of wholesome food given weekly for the supply of 40 poor families: at the rate of two gallons and a half each.' There may be the odd Spectator reader who is already out of his chair making the necessary arrangements for distributing dripping hunks of brewis to the occupants of his nearest council estate. I am not sure I'd care to accompany him. The dustman recently featured in the Sunday Tele- graph's supplement assured us that it Was on such estates that the most food was wasted and even if the reader escaped the wrath of the inhabitants he would be sure to be attacked by those who presume to speak for them, accusing him of threaten- ing them with fat-induced heart disease. But just because brewis is no longer the right thing to give and council estate dwellers are not necessarily the people to whom we ought to give, it does not follow that we should not give any sort of food to anyone. It really is a habit to be revived. It costs the affluent imperative cook no extra, trouble to cook a little extra, particularly ot, those things which are costly, or awkward for those living alone to prepare for that- selves, most obviously the widower. 111• deed it may be just the excuse an impera" tive cook living in a small family needs to cook those splendid dishes that only make sense for larger numbers. Good cooks derive pleasure when others enjoy their cooking. To get such pleasure they do not have to go through the rigmarole of holding dinner parties al which the guests will be too drunk on wine or their own conversation to notice the, food. All that is necessary is gently to start giving a neighbour the odd dish. It Is a, mark of the appalling disabling effect the Welfare State that such a suggestion, su, normal to cooks through the ages, show t° sound odd today.
Digby Anderson
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