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To the Editor of The Idler.

Dear Sir: Though I am not one of your subscribers I am, I believe, one of your most faithful readers. I do not take your magazine, it is true, but I am at present employed in a family some member of which is evidently a subscriber, as the maid brings it out in the waste-paper basket regularly, once a month, when, according to her custom, she permits me to select from the month’s periodicals such journals as seem to me to be worthy of my attention in my leisure hours. I shall not conceal from you the fact that my fancy was first attracted to your publication by the fact that I always found it fresh and clean, with the leaves still uncut, and not soiled, bedraggled and often coverless as are some of the others which suffer more usage before reaching me. But having once cut the leaves with a convenient bread-knife and looked through one of your numbers, I perceived at once that you are, in your way, something of a philosopher, and I have ever been partial to everything that smacked of philosophy. Could you step into my pantry at the present moment you would find upon my shelves Plato and Aristotle as well as the immortal Mrs. Rorer, for I am, in my humble fashion, a philosopher as well as a cook. I do not at all agree with that learned and talented French gentleman who declared that to study philosophy was to learn to die; on the contrary, I hold that to study philosophy is to learn to live, and I see no reason why the study of philosophy is not as fitting an occupation for a cook as for a collegian. Therefore I cook or philosophize according to my inclination, and if it seem to you that I philosophize like a cook, my employer, I am proud to say, will tell you that I cook like a philosopher.

In youth I had the advantage of a grammar school education, and that education I have supplemented with reading and observation. If, as Pope has said,

“The proper study of mankind is man,”

then I have entered the right school for the completion of my education; for the kitchen is, it seems to me, a natural observatory for the study of human nature. Working away at my chosen profession in the seclusion of my kitchen, I can, without ever having laid eyes upon him, give you a complete character of the head of the household. I can not with certainty say whether he is a large or small man, because the appetite is sometimes deceptive in this respect, and I have known a small man to eat as much as would suffice for two stevedores, and I have known an athlete to peck at a meal that would leave a child hungry. It is not, then, by his physical character that I judge him, but by his mental and psychological symptoms. I do not gage him by how much he eats, but by what he eats. I can not tell you whether he is large or small, but I can tell you whether he is voluptuous or esthetic, good-natured or crabbed, rich or poor, wise or foolish.

It is really remarkable the knowledge I come to have of this person whom I have never seen, or it would be if the method by which I reach my conclusions were not so simple. If he keeps fast days and eats only fish upon Fridays, I know, of course, that he is a churchman. If he persistently eats food which is bad for any man’s digestion, I know that he is both irritable and obstinate, for no man can continue to eat what does not agree with him without becoming irritable, and no man will continue such a course in the face of his better judgment unless he is obstinate. If he eats only of rich food and shows a constant preference for taste over nutrition, I know that he is a voluptuary; it is seldom that a man indulges himself in a passion for over-eating who does not indulge himself in other passions as well, and even though his one indulgence be eating, he is none the less a voluptuary by nature. If he eats little and that in an abstracted manner, sometimes overlooking a favorite dish or allowing his soup to grow cold so that it is returned half-eaten, I know that he is absent-minded and eats merely because he has to, not because he loves eating for its own sake. If he insists upon having his toast an exact shade of brown and his coffee at a given degree of temperature, I know that he is exacting and particular as to details; that he thinks well of himself and thinks of himself often.

So, as you see, there are hundreds of these moral symptoms which are as familiar to me as physical symptoms are to a physician. Thus I supplement my theoretical knowledge of philosophy by my observation of life.

When I was casting about me for an occupation I had, being an orphan, a perfectly free choice. Had I followed my first impulse, I think I should have gone to live in a tub like Diogenes, and have resolved to spend my life, like Schopenhauer, in thinking about it. But a little observation soon convinced me that the man who lives in the fashion of Diogenes is not held in high favor in these days and that philosophy, as a profession, would be likely to prove unremunerative. Now I am not one who desires riches or who can not be happy without wealth, but I soon decided that I must be possessed of a certain amount of money in order to indulge my taste for personal cleanliness. I soon gave over the tub of Diogenes, but I was loath to forego all intercourse with the ordinary domestic tub.

Having determined, therefore, to enter upon some profession in which I could make a reasonable amount of money without requiring a great preliminary outlay, I looked about me for a vocation which might supply my physical needs, and at the same time, afford me some mental and spiritual satisfaction. I dismissed the study of the law or medicine as beyond my means, and I did not find myself sufficiently religious to permit me to enter the ministry with a clear conscience. For trade I had your true philosopher’s distaste, and I confess no sort of manual labor, except as cooking may be so described, held any attraction for me. I shuddered at the thought of becoming a barber, chiropodist or hair-dresser, and my pride would not permit me to suffer the rebuffs which fall to the lot of a pedler, book agent or commercial traveler.

It was then that I was struck with my happy inspiration. I would become a member of an old and honorable profession—I would become a cook. If I could not be a philosopher and nourish men’s minds, I would be a cook and nourish their bodies. I would make dishes so delicious and enticing that men upon the brink of suicide would turn back to life with new hope in their hearts. I would impart energy to the weary, peace to the troubled in mind and happiness to the discontented. I would become such a cook as might have won the praise of Lucullus; I would become an artist worthy to take the hand of Epicurus. Such were the extravagant hopes I hugged to my breast when I matriculated at the best cooking-school of my native state. It is true that my achievements have fallen far short of my ambitions, but I have never swerved from my allegiance to my ideal of the Perfect Dinner.

Upon finishing my course at cooking-school, I utilized my savings in indulging myself in a post-graduate course abroad. I went to Paris, and there I made the acquaintance of the immortal Frederick of the Tour d’Argent, he of the famous pressed ducks, and of other masters of the culinary art.

This, then, was my preparation for a life of cooking. Possibly you will think that I took my profession too seriously; possibly you do not hold the same high opinion of the art of cooking that I have always held—there are many so minded. It is a never-failing source of wonder to me that men are so quick to recognize the services of those who feed their minds and so slow to acknowledge the debt they owe to those who feed their bodies. I have never regarded cooking in the light of mere manual labor. Labor, it seems to me, is work that is distasteful and only performed from necessity; a “labor of love” seems to me to be a paradox. Work, on the contrary, may be as keen a source of pleasure as recreation. Work may be the striving of an artist to attain his ideal. The very word “labor” suggests pain and exhaustion. We speak of an author’s “works,” but who would think of referring to them as his “labors”?

I do not believe, as many seem to believe, that any man or woman who can juggle a skillet or wield an egg-beater is a cook. Merely to follow a formula in a cookery book does not make one a cook any more than the compounding of a prescription makes one a physician. Cooking is an art as well as a science. The violinist can not express his personality in the strains of his instrument more fully than can the cook in his cooking. The favorite dishes of a race are characteristic of that race. The Spaniard, like his chili con carne and his tamale, is hot, peppery and economical. The Frenchman, like his many concoctions, is full of spice, imagination and extravagance. The Italian is indolent and averse to exertion, as is evidenced by his macaroni and spaghetti. The Englishman is red and hearty like his roast beef. The German is fat and fair like his sausages. The Russian is odd and interesting like his caviar. The American, like his diet, is cosmopolitan. And as the cooking of a nation or race is characteristic of that nation or race, so the cooking of an individual is characteristic of that individual. Coarse people do not prepare dainty dishes. A cook may strike a discord as surely as a musician.

To be a good cook, a cook worthy of one’s calling, one must have the soul of an artist. One must be clean, self-respecting, industrious, ambitious, earnest, quick to learn and trained to remember. Do other professions require more?

The cook wields a tremendous influence for good or for evil. Over a good dinner the most cynical or the most brutal man must relax into something like human kindness. It is indeed true that

“All human history attests

That happiness for man,—the hungry sinner!—

Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner!”

If there be even the feeblest spark of charity in a man’s breast, a good dinner will fan it into flame. A bad dinner, on the other hand, will bring to the surface all that is mean and ignoble in his nature. Indigestion, I surmise, has been the cause of most of the cruelty of men. Viewing history in this light, it is easier to understand the apparently wanton slaughter among barbarians. Fed upon ill-conditioned food, the barbarian is attacked in his most sensitive part—his stomach. He is upset, distrait; his nerves are set upon edge and he knows not what ails him. He grows irritable and quick to anger, and he wrecks his unreasoning and unreasonable spleen upon the first convenient victim. It is to be observed that the science of cookery and the progress of civilization advance together. Well-fed men are slow to wrath and easily appeased. At the height of the Roman civilization the Romans became epicures and ceased to be warriors. War has no charms for the man who is at peace with his own stomach.

It may be urged by some that cooking, in rendering a man unwarlike, does him an ill service because it makes him effeminate. But the same may be said of all the cardinal virtues except, perhaps, bravery. Forbearance, loving kindness, gentleness, faith—all these and many others are essentially feminine virtues. Nay, civilization itself is a feminizing influence. Under our modern civilization, which as far as we know is the highest the world has ever experienced, men are reduced to the condition of dependents. Men no longer rely upon their personal prowess and valor for redress for their injuries or the defense of their natural rights. The law has become the protector of men, just as men were once the protectors of women. And this feminizing influence of civilization is, I take it, a wise provision of Providence for the benefit of cookery. The less men are concerned with battle, murder and sudden death, the more they are concerned with their dinners; and the more solicitous they become for their dinners, the more they desire the safety of the home, the peace of nations and the prosperity of mankind—all things, in short, which help to make possible the Perfect Dinner, perfectly chosen, perfectly cooked and perfectly eaten.

I say “perfectly eaten” because it seems to me that there is an art of eating as well as an art of cooking. It is said that a musician does his best when playing before an appreciative audience; and so the cook is at his best when cooking for an appreciative diner. It is a discouraging thing for an actor to peep out from behind the drop-curtain and see the pit all but empty of spectators; but it is a heart-breaking experience for a cook to peep through the swinging doors of his sanctum sanctorum and to behold the diners distant and indifferent, this one idly chattering and that one buried in a late edition of a newspaper, while his delicious soups, his super-excellent omelets, his heart-warming coffee, his inspiring steaks and his magnificent pâtés grow cold and unpalatable upon the unregarded plates! To see one’s chef-d’œuvres treated as hors-d’œuvres—that is a tragedy of the soul!

To attain the Perfect Dinner we must attain the Perfect Civilization. The diner must be as free to enjoy his dinner as the cook is to prepare it; and, in like manner, the Perfect Dinner is the concomitant of the Perfect Civilization. Man is civilized when he is well-fed and uncivilized when he is ill-fed. This is a truth which you need not accept upon my unsupported authority; any housewife will tell you as much. If the earth were to be visited by a plague which attacked only those who could cook and carried them off all at one time, I believe that the world would relapse into anarchy in the space of thirty days.

It seems to me that the profession of cooking is not at all incompatible with the study of philosophy. As I apply my philosophy to my cooking, so I apply my cooking to my philosophy. Some of my philosophers I take raw, some I boil down to the very juice and some I season; for philosophy, I believe, is often more digestible when taken cum grano salis.

I may be wrong, and it may seem egotistical in me to say it, but really, Mr. Idler, I believe that if more people were of my mind to mix their philosophy and their cooking, there would be many more intelligent cooks and not a few more palatable philosophers.

I am, Sir, your humble servant,

Bartholomew Battercake.