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Classic
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page introduction 1
INTRODUCTION
A friend of mine, in the South, once said to me, that the surrender at Appomatox
had brought about two serious calamities--an end to duelling and the
disappearance of the colored cook. We may at least agree with him that the
latter result is a matter deeply to be deplored by all who, like myself,
remember the marvellous skill of the Southern cooks. I used to be of opinion
that the frying-pan should be our national emblem, so complete was its culinary
despotism in New England and the West; indeed, when once I was at Marquette and
Duluth, buying a camp outfit, there was not a gridiron for sale in either town.
But in the hands of a colored cook even the frying-pan ceased to be an
instrument for producing dyspepsia; and what other black art there was in the
kitchens where the dark mammys reigned, who now can say? It was a rule-of-thumb
business which was never written, save in some old-time receipt book, and was
literally handed down from one generation to another.
The well-mannered colored folk, with aristocratic tastes, still existed in my
native city when I was young. One of them, who was formerly my nurse, was always
sent for to cook the terrapin when there was a dinner party. She turned the
other servants out of the kitchen, and performed her kindly incantations alone!
North of us, no one has ever been able to cook terrapin, which accounts for many
things. As a race, we are certainly not gifted with culinary
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