Cooking As Men Like It

Part I

CHAPTER PAGE I. Modern Homes, Modern Women and Food 1

1, Men and Women at Cross-Purposes on Food.—2. Less Home Cookery, Less Marriage.—3. The Shrinking Kitchen.—4.

False Ideals of Some Modern Women.—).

The Solution of the Problem.

Il. The Great Interest of Men in oe and Toed ge) 5 ut, 8

6. Why do Men Love Food and Gscker —-7. Man’s Imagination and Food.—8.

Men as Chefs.—9. More Scientific Interest Among Men in Food.

III. “Food Crimes’’—What Men ee to in COORetHu 5% 16

10. The “Society for the Prevention of fe Ruination of Good Food by Poor Cookery.” 11. Earl Derr Biggers Hits Vegetable Cookery.—12. What a Visiting Foreigner Says. —13. American Men Not Satisfied With French Cookery.—14. Gelett Burgess Raps French Cookery.—15. A He-Man Sports “Colymnist’s’’ Kicks.—16. A Galaxy of Grumbles from the Male Sex.—17. Foreign Gourmets Speak of Crimes Against Rice, Spaghetti, Tea.—18. H. I. Phillips Warns the Ladies of Fancy Cookery.— 19, Nunnally Johnson Slams Right and Left.

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CONTENTS

IV. Flavor and Savor in Food

20. Why Do Women Seldom Savor Food?—21. Flavorless Food in America.— 22. Smell as Well as Taste in Food Flavor.—23. Appreciating Food’s Natural Flavors. — 24. Appetite and Savor. — 25. “Eating With the Eyes’’ Instead of With Flavor.—26. Some Details of Flavorsome Tidbits, Male Style.

V. The Arts and the Joys of Eating

27. The Table Joys of Yesterday.— 28. Why Are We Not Food-Conscious?

—29. The American Evil of Food-Bolting.

—30. Good Conversation Plus Good Food.

—31. Modern Dinner Parties.

VI. Masculine Diet in a Business Age

32. Changing Over to a Sedentary Diet.— 33. The Disagreeable But Necessary Digestive Facts—34. The Meat Problem.— 35. This Talk About Vitamins. —36.

Keeping an “Alkaline Balance.’’-—37. Proteins and Starches at the Same Meal?—— 38. Eating Enough ‘‘Roughage.’’—39. Over-eating and Under-eating—40. Genuine Reducing Technique.

VII. The Breakfast Problem

41. The Passing of Meat for Breakfast.— 42. The No-Breakfast, or Two-Meal-a- Day Idea.—43. Tasty Breakfasts That are Healthy.—44. Traditional Breakfasts. 45. An All-Fruit Breakfast—46. Kidneys for Breakfast—47. My Favorite Omelets.-— 48. Philadelphia Scrapple—49. A Potato Breakfast—50. An _ Intelligent Sausage Breakfast.—51. Suggestions for Vegetable Breakfasts—52. Something About Cereals.

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CONTENTS v CHAPTER PAGE

—53. Cornmeal Mush and Syrup.—54.

Griddle Cakes, Hot Breads, etc.

VIII. The Lunch Problem . . . 89

55. The Meat-for-Lunch Problem. —56.

Restaurant Lunch Competition With Home Dinners.—57. Some Suitable and Seasonable Starch Luncheons.—58. A Waffle or Pancake Lunch.—59. Vegetable Lunches.— 60. Protein Lunches.

IX Outdoor and: Camp Gookery 2.3) 2 6 102

61. The New Outdoor Living Room and Kitchen Idea.—62. Outdoor Fireplace Cookery.—63. Roast Corn, Potatoes, Onions.—64. Grilled Fireplace Foods.— 65. Skewered Foods.—66. Shore “‘Bakes.’’— 66. Outdoor Fish Cookery.—67. Outdoor Game Cookery.—68. Some Hints for Camp Cookery in the Wilds.—69. More Vitamins in Camp Cookery.—70. Roadside Auto Picnicking. —71. The ‘Barbecue’

Technique.—72. Provisioning for the Wilds.

X. Steaks and Chops as Men Like Them . . 127

73. “Ripening’’ Your Steak.—74. Selection and Cut.—75. The Trick of Broiling.— 76. Serving a Steak Properly.—77. Mushrooms or Onions With Steak.—78. Steak from a Frying Pan.—79. Planked Steak.

—80. “‘Club’’ Steak.—81. Steak Sauces.— 82. A Rump Steak ‘““That Is.’’—83. A Novelty: A Swiss Steak.—84. The Chop.

XI. Fish, Oysters and Clams as Men Like Them 134

85. The Succulent Oyster—86. The Famous ‘‘Bouilla-Baisse.’’—87. Fish Broiling.— 88. Sauces for Fish.—89. Fillet of Sole vi

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XIV.

XV.

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CONTENTS

Marguery.—90. Shad Roe Broiled or With Celery and Tomatoes.—91. Fish 4 La Commodore.—92. A New Way to Cook Trout.

—93. Baked Stuffed Fish.—94. “‘Gefillte Fish.” —95. A String of Special Fish Recipes.

Special Dishes That Men Smack Their Le Over ;

96. Some Special ae —97. Various Odd Dishes.

Odd Dishes No Perfect Lady Loves

98. Tripe—yes, Tripe!—99. Corned Beef and Cabbage.—100. Hog Jowl and Turnip

Greens.—101. Collared Pig’s Head.—102.

Fish Pie.

Vegetables Cooked so That Men Won't Hate Them

103. The Art of Vegetable Sones ae Baked Vegetables. 105. Broiled Vegetables.—106. Pressure Cookers, Waterless Cookers, etc.—107. Vegetable Cookery Timetables.—108. The Art of Cooking Peas or Carrots.

Salads That Men Can Endure

109. Serving Salad Greens.—110. Good Fruit Salads —111. Fruit and Nut Salads. —112. Good Vegetable Salads.—113. Give “Cole Slaw’’ Its Due.—114. Salads as Meals.—115. The Aspics.

Ham With Variety

116. Ringing the Changes on Ham.— 117. Baked and Roast Ham.

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CHAPTER PAGE

XVII. Game and Fowl Served With Skill for Man set. aster GO 188

118. Chicken.—119. Duck.—120. Rabbit—121. Wild Fowl.—122. Broiled Wild Fowl.

XVIII. Meat Substitutes Men Won’t Damn . . 198

123. Beans as the ‘‘Pinch-Hitter’’ for Meat. —124. The Nut Family of Meat Substitutes.—125. The Fritter Family.—126.

The “Stuffed Family.”—127. The Marvelous Omelet Family.—128. The Rice Family.

XIX. Meat Pies That Delight the Male Sex . . 210

129. English Meat Pies. —130. Oyster Pies.—131. Some Vegetarian Pies.

PAR LHI A Gastronomic Journey Around the World 223 (With Recipes)

132. A Real “‘Cook’s Tour’ Around the World, at Home.—133. Starting From New York on a Foreign Boat.—134. The Delights of the Gastronomical Capital of the World—Paris.—135. The Foods of Old England.—136. Belgium.—137. Spain.— 138. Portugal. —139. Germany. — 140.

Scandinavia. — 141. Russia. — 142. Poland. — 143. Hungary.— 144. Greece.— 145. Bulgaria.—146. Persia—147. Turkey and Armenia. —148. India. —149.

China. — 150. Japan.—151. Hawaii. — 152. South America. —153. Mexico.— 154. Haiti—155. California—156. New Orleans —157. Southern Cookery.—158.

Pennsylvania Dutch Food.—159. New York.—160. New England.

“This group . . . forming the bulk of what, broadly speaking, may be called the delicatessen wives, in one way or another . . . will not again be a definite force. The younger group of ten million or so women . . . all fresh and educated to be good wives and mothers . . . bent on being feminine first and foremost . . . will get the new freedom... by simply inaugurating it; and presently their ‘emancipated’ elders will be flocking to their homes for Sunday morning waffle breakfasts. . . . This isn’t all tmagination. . . . Query the young people you know. There ts the newly married girl of twenty-one. She did the housework, read the paper, went to lunch with someone, went to a lecture and came home and cooked a gourmet’s dinner.” —ELIZABETH ONATIVIA, in Scribner’s, June, 1930.

“In flocking into outside business, women have lost their prestige in thetr own field without making up for it by accomplishment ona par with men. . . Deep down in her heart every woman wants a home. The country ts facing a widespread restlessness.

Men no longer find satisfaction in their homes. The art of home making has declined much tn recent years.’’—MRrs. THOMAS EDISON.

By ELIZABETH MADOxX ROBERTS

HE chops the meat with a golden knife And cooks it in a golden skillet.

For coal she has a golden hod.

There ts always a plenty to fill it.

She has some tongs made out of pearl To poke the fire and make tt burn.

She pours the milk in diamond crocks And churns the cream in a silver churn.

And when she’s tired she has a stool; It’s made of jade with pearls set in tt.

She sits down here and wipes her face And gets her breath a minute.

On Saturday she stirs the cake

With gold, and when the water is hot, She kills the hen with a golden axe

And scalds her in a golden pot.

—Saturday Literary Review.

“There has been a tendency in diet work in the last decade to treat man as a putely chemical machine working on calories, vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, etc. Taste, odor and appearance of food have been largely neglected, and it ts these which will occupy most of our attention. . .. Two of the world’s most famous pessimists, Carlyle and Schopenhauer, suffered all their lives from bad digestions. We may find evidence that a psychologically sound diet might have contributed to turning those blackspectacled authors into members of the optimists club! Coming down to more practical matters, we may discover that properly selected flavors and odors, together with attractive appearance, offer a harassed wife the surest means of turning a moody husband into a sparkling table conversationalist !’-—-DR. DON- ALD A. LAIRD, Colgate University, announcing a new series of laboratory studies of food.

“The host was yet privy to the great truth that dining is an essentially masculine business, and so the party was usually stag.’-—H. L. MENCKEN in The New York Sun.

Introduction By Mts. Christine Frederick, famous household authority

I have been cooking or overseeing the meals eaten by Mr. Frederick for a quarter century.

At first I “viewed with alarm’”’ this desire of Mr. Frederick’s to write a book on Cooking As Men Like It—for how could the casual reader believe otherwise than that he was a poor, supressed, and possibly semi-starved husband making a bold dash into print with a kind of “‘now it can be told” story of his gastronomic grievance for the past 25 years? And surely no wife,—even if a reputed “‘expert’’ in the fields of household engineering and domestic science—would relish having the secrets of her home kitchen ruthlessly exposed!

However I feel confident that his many friends will testify to Mr. Frederick being a specimen of health, energy and good feeding. And that he is full of fight, this book gives ample proof!

Like most doctors, there are a few dietetic points on which we disagree. But with the main contention he puts forward I am heartily in accord, believing with him that ‘‘cooking as men like it’’ is a point of view women should pay more real attention to—now that some real facts are available! If any of the thousands of women who have read my articles in newspapers or magazines, or my own books, should buy this volume, I hasten to assure them that they may quite safely feed and cook for their husbands in the manner Mr. Frederick describes and advocates.

If I had my wish, every young girl, every wife and prospective home manager the country over would not only buy and read this book, but place it in her cook-~book rack, and practice what it preaches—cook the dishes it describes and avoid the errors it warns about. In other words, “‘feed the brute in the way the brute likes to be fed’’—namely in a really civilized way!

CHRISTINE FREDERICK.

September, 1930.

I

Modern Homes, Modern Women and Food

“Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner,’’ said Byron in Don Juan—and this is what every man knows. Doubtless such realization made Fanny Fern many years ago shape her famous phrase “‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach”’ (modern version, “‘feed the brute’’).

Alas, modern woman is significantly different, and the result is that man is in a confusion about food at the present time.

1. Men and Women at Cross-Purposes on Food.—The confusion arises from the fact that women have greatly reduced their attention to food, while men have greatly increased their sensitivity to food. American business men travel so much, living at good hotels, and eat so much in restaurants that they are far more conscious of food standards than in earlier days. -Many a man lunches at a restaurant on some tasty dish, or while on a trip on his firm’s expense account lives at good hotels where well-paid chefs prepare the meals—and then returns to his own home to a dinner of overdone meat, badly prepared, and vegetables as soggy and tasteless as so much paper pulp.

Not even the coffee is as good as he is accustomed to having. Usually he says nothing about it; his wife complains about her terribly poor luck with servants, if they can afford one: or if she does her own cooking he realizes the futility and the irritation of criticizing her lack of taste and skill.

The fact is that the great majority of young women of the past two generations has spurned any knowledge of cookery and preferred going into business. On the day such young women set up housekeeping they probably knew less about food preparation than they did about Greek poetry or astronomy. They had hoped—even expected—to marry a man who could afford to hire a servant, and if friend husband who cannot afford one speaks out too plainly about their makeshift cookery such women will like as not twit him about his inability to pay for service. As only 2% to 4% of all American families can afford any household help, one can see how unreasonable is such an argument.

2. Less Home Cookery, Less Marriage—I am purposely being rather blunt about this, because, truth to tell, one of the reasons why fewer men brave matrimony today is because home no longer offers them the comforts of good cookery. This is no idle jest. Just why a man should be thrilled at the idea of setting up housekeeping in order to suffer incompetent cookery, canned goods and delicatessen, and put up with a wife whose brightest idea about meals is to go out for dinner, has not yet been satisfactorily explained. If the home and its good cheer around the board is to disappear, why marry at all? It should be patent to all that to undermine the charm of satisfying meals served in the home is to undermine the home itself, because the home began around the fireplace, which from the dawn of man until a hundred years ago was also the cook stove of the family. It is not merely that man loves above all else the pleasure of good food. I warn the unthinking woman that the food “‘complex”’ in man spreads over many other things than food: hospitality, comfort, social pride, good cheer, good conversation and conviviality are tied up with the home food idea. The* values for which men marry are certainly not chiefly food values, but since food and sex are both powerful primary in-

MODERN HOMES, MODERN WOMEN AND FOOD 3 stincts, they bear an intensely close relation to marriage and home, the one as much as the other.

Thus we face the perplexing fact that just at a time when American men are at last becoming ‘‘food conscious,’ just as they show a civilized, sophisticated readiness to take thought of taste-perception in eating instead of hastily bolting something called food; just as modern transportation efficiency has provided the greatest variety of food ever made available to man—Jjust at this point women have, in very large numbers, ceased to be interested in cookery; almost ceased, indeed, to be interested in the home as the center of gracious and cultured living. I submit that this is serious business!

3. The Shrinking Kitchen—Modern man finds himself much bewildered in an age when the home is moved first to an apartment, then to apartment rooms which eliminate the dining room altogether. When as a last move—now common in large cities—the kitchen is compressed into a mere closet, however ingeniously disguised, or messily thrust into an alcove of the living room, real home cookery becomes entirely impossible. The situation appears to tend to become still worse rather than better. More and more of the country’s population pours into large cities; more and more of that city population houses itself in apartments, and more and more such apartments eliminate the dining room and are designed on the theory that their inhabitants will “‘eat out’? and thus require only a few makeshift cooking facilities for breakfast or quick-lunch preparation. Apartments are also springing up even in the suburbs and in smaller cities, showing that apartment homes are the now preferred type of homes, and thus starting even suburban and small town families on the same evolution toward closetkitchen, no-dining room, and restaurant point of view about meals.

I do not for a moment wish to infer that such a development is due entirely to women, or that men are being dragged into apartments against their wills! There is a natural technical evolution, fostered indeed by business men themselves, toward greater economy of effort and increased comfort. American men are notably chivalrous and like to see their womenfolk freed from physical burdens, such as furnace tending and a surplus of rooms to clean, which led directly to apartment house-living. The problem is one for all of us to ponder.

I must also make a distinct exception of those women who are taking a real modern interest in food and feeding their families more intelligently and more appetizingly than families were ever fed before. Many of these women have caught the spirit which I am trying to build up in this book: the spirit of intelligent delight in good food, the spirit of aesthetic appreciation for the great galaxy of good foods we now have available; the spirit of delight in food which the great men of all ages have shared; the greater the men the greater the joy. This is the spirit which made even the patriarchs of the Bible exclaim:

“She brought forth butter in a lordly dish’ (Judges) —the spirit which made Owen Meredith write—

“We may live without poetry, music and art; We may live without conscience, live without heart; We may live without friends, we may live without books We civilized man cannot live without cooks!”

4. False Ideals of Some Modern Women.—Such women instinctively know that it is a false ideal for so many women today to “‘come out of the kitchen’’ and slur all interest in food in favor of chimerical pursuits of one kind and another which so often come to naught; and that this exodus from the hearth is a condition particularly dangerous to women’s basic happiness and fundamental status in life. As one critic has said “women have gone away from the center of life to its periphery, and have lost importance accordingly.” The extreme ‘‘feminism’’ of the years of the suffrage fight exalted the idea that for every woman of any restless dreams there was a high place waiting in the arts, in business, or in politics, which would give her much greater satisfaction than ‘‘mere domesticity.’’ I have long been one of those men who have cheered woman onward in her desire for a career, and I still applaud those few who have genuine power and ability. They should specialize. But it is a curious fact that the abler and the more successful such women are, the more surely they come, after a period of years,

MODERN HOMES, MODERN WOMEN AND FOOD 5 to the conclusion that for genuine happiness there is no substitute for the simpler joys of life—food preparation and dining at home being some of the best of these. Even so conspicuous a “‘careerist’” among women as Elizabeth Marbury has admitted it, and many women with famous names may be found whose greatest delight is their kitchen.

At one time (in Alice Duer Miller’s phrase) the battle cry was “‘Come Out of the Kitchen,’’ whereas there is now a distinct movement noticeable even among the younger generation of smart women in society, of “Back to the Simple Joys of Home and Large Families.’’ It is today socially smart and normal for a wealthy bride to don an apron and cook. The truth is that most women, like most men, are not born for greatness or high place, and that to act as if you were is only to make yourself ridiculous and unhappy. ‘The basic facts of life and human nature are inexorable and fixed, and we stray away from them at our peril. Rich or poor, we must eat, and rich or poor, a woman cannot evade the responsibility of serving good food (which means knowing what good food is, which in turn means being at least a good amateur cook) —just as a man cannot evade special family financial responsibilities. A man can no more help thinking less of a woman who cannot prepare a simple meal than a woman can help thinking less of a man who is undependable financially. I do not care how fair or wealthy or famous she be (to paraphrase an old saying) she is not ‘‘fair’’ to me or to most other men if she cannot prepare me an appetizing meal!

I will go so far as to say, deliberately, that woman without a background of a real home, in which she personally cooks and serves food—occasionally even if not habitually—is robbing herself of her most subtle, instinctive attraction to man, is depriving herself of her most deep-rooted basis of appeal and charm, and is tampering with the very foundations of human happiness, both for herself, her family, and society as a whole. The millions of years of woman’s association with food and feeding has very deeply ingrained in man a sense of its essential fitness, even of its beauty. It is quite precisely on a par with a woman’s innate expectation from man that he be self-reliant, physically strong and economically capable. The one is no less fair an expectation than the other.

This is not mere cry of a selfish, traditional male who wants woman to be his body-servant; it is a reasoned statement based on the principle of a natural subdivision of human labor and responsibility. It is a statement which makes ample exception for the relatively few women of special ability; a statement which is quite willing to grant that woman’s interests must not be limited to home and food, and that woman should, like man, use every ingenuity and aid of science to reduce the drudgery of home-making and food preparation. But there is a very great difference indeed between, on the one hand, intelligently applying efficiency principles to the hard labor of home work, and thus obtaining leisure to do other things while still doing full justice to the delights of good food—and on the other hand slighting and losing interest entirely in home food preparation. Women do not seem to realize that this is the authentic sign of decentralizing the home; pulling it up by its roots, and making all-day café dwellers of us, with all its attendant destruction of solid, normal human values and virtues. This is, moreover, a condition far more serious to women than to men.

5. The Solution of the Problem.—The corrective for conditions like these is a new attitude and outlook, and as far as possible a general adjustment of ideas of life to a more “‘humanistic’’ point of view. This humanistic philosophy emphasizes the dignity of man; and therefore the dignity of man’s home, his hospitality, his food, and his broad and inclusive, normal, balanced enjoyment of life; living with balance and “the golden mean.’’ Emphasis on food does not mean gourmandizing, but the happy meeting of appetite, intelligence and the opportunities of the modern day in food provision. It very distinctly does not mean that woman demeans herself by associating herself with food; on the contrary it lends her a special dignity and lustre, as in the Anglo-Saxon meaning of “Lady”’:the “‘loaf-giver,”” and after the manner of the original humanists, the Greeks, to whom food was akin to the gods, Through all the ages man has kept something of this romantic, aesthetic and imaginative attitude toward food. The greatest poets have sung of it; the greatest artists painted it, the greatest

MODERN HOMES, MODERN WOMEN AND FOOD 7 writers rhapsodized about it. Many of the greatest philosophers and statesmen have deeply interested themselves in it, even to cooking with their own hands. Not even the holy friars of the Church put aside food as too carnal. It is only woman of modern times, from Marie Antoinette downward, who for reasons of snobbery and false aristocracy, has affected to consider food and food preparation something earthly and coarse and menial.

This is the philosophy which those women who still hold it should throw away as false. The men of every country whose women have such a philosophy (as for example England) must subsist on poor food and are robbed of vast delights and comforts, to say nothing of lessened male comradeship. Englishmen, notoriously, live in their clubs to a degree unknown in any other country. America has stemmed from England in this respect, and the greater part of American men have tolerated for generations most outrageous cookery, many of them never aware of their loss until more recent years. American men now also are clustering into clubs. A large part of American women have been far more deeply interested in Browning than in better cookery, scarcely realizing that it was far more creditable to their genuine culture to be able to cook a dish that was ‘‘a poem’”’ than to sentimentalize over secondrate poets. In the new humanistic philosophy, which is the peak of the finest culture of today, all things human are good, when used under the principle of measure and proportion; and it is distinctly ignorant to use any of them badly or slur their dignity and place.

American women will be better comrades of men, and men better comrades of women, if they humanistically find a thrill together in the marvelous cornucopia of good food available for American tables today. The art, the story and the lore of its preparation and enjoyment is part of the rich literary and aesthetic treasure of the human race. The Frenchman and his wife who love good food, and who have set cooks beside the company of Immortals, are notoriously good comrades—more so than the men and women of any other European nation. May it not be because neither of them fail to set good cookery in its rightful high place in the scheme of things?

II The Great Interest of Men in Cookery and F ood

“Who ever heard of a famous author who wasn’t still more famous as a cook?” asks Gelett Burgess, and none dares answer him. The fact that the 500th book—and possibly the most beloved—which Dumas wrote was a book on cookery should be enough to deter a critic from any attempt to refute the statement. Merely in passing one may refer to Charles Lamb’s famous essay on roast pig, and the flavorsome pages on food by Dickens, and for good measure end by saying that it is not only writers, but musicians, artists, and great men of all kinds who should be included. Rossini, the great Italian composer, created music best after he had eaten a good dinner, cooked by himself. The prelude to The Barber of Seville, demanded in a hurry, was produced in just this way.

6. Why Do Men Love Food and Cookery?—No woman seems ever quite able to grasp the reason for this intense delight of men in food and cookery. The shallow-miuded among them simply attribute it to man’s strong animal appetites. Indeed this is a favorite pose of the “‘spiritual sisterhood,” as a friend of mine calls those women who like to pretend that women are

GREAT INTEREST OF MEN IN COOKERY 9 so much more “‘spiritual’’ than men! They look upon man’s evident delight in succulent food as proof positive of the old Puritanical idea that man is at bottom a sinful, earthy creature. Likewise the American chivalrous tradition that woman is of “‘superior clay’”’ gives them further support in this theory. It is told of Irvin Cobb—a gorgeously earthy creature who coined the delightful phrase “‘a sincere eater,’’ doubtless to describe himself—that when he lived at a certain boarding house in the South there regularly sat opposite him a thin old spinster who picked ever so delicately at her food. Cobb took vast delight in repeatedly passing food to her, solely in order to hear the condescending tones of her austere refusals, and to enjoy her implied reproaches as she refused what he so abundantly enjoyed. Sometimes the dear spirit was quite unable to endure seeing Irvin partake further of ham-hocks and cabbage, and on such occasions, the story goes, she rose and with a superior swish of her alpaca gown, disappeared into her spiritual home upstairs!

I fear that, in the words of Homer, “‘man was born but to banquet and to drain the bowl,” and that Samuel Johnson was not stretching the truth a bit when he said, “For a man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does his dinner!’’ But the reason why is far from piggishness. It is directly related to man’s particular physical make-up and to his aggressiveness and energy. Man loves food because food is energy, and the great, distinctive male principle is energy and action. Man is a power plant, and every stoker of boilers knows what roaring delight power plants take in their fuel which they transform so efficiently into directed action. Man’s “rate of metabolism,’ or conversion of food into energy, is markedly higher than woman’s, as tests have fully demonstrated. He needs more food calories than woman simply because he is a man. This alone provides full and sufficient explanation of man’s strong interest in food, but it is by no means the only reason. Men are as a rule more frankly in harmony with their appetites, while women are more usually inhibited in all appetites.

At the same time, men are judged by what they do, while women are more definitely judged by what they are. Women’s physical selves, their delicacy of deportment, their weight, their grace, their manners are vital matters in their destinies. If food is eaten by women with the same gusto as by men, and in the same quantity and kind, it is very likely to accompany, if not produce, a masculine set of qualities. Thus the average woman —and in America nowadays nearly all women, sometimes to their utter ill-health—distinctly repress their appetites for food. They have gone quite too far in this, of course. Their everpresent fear is a destroyed artistry of line of figure through eating too much food. As a result they dangerously starve themselves, since the particular artistry of line for which they strive is artificial, unwholesome and conventionalized. Thus their general attitude toward food is rendered somewhat antagonistic and is one of the secret reasons why women’s interest in cookery has so greatly declined. A woman who is ““dieting,’’ who does not care about food, and who is afraid to eat much herself, is bound to be a poor cook!