“Do not laugh when I tell you that one of the most serious perplexities of my every-day life is the daily recurring question, ‘What shall we have for dinner?’” writes a correspondent.

I do not smile at the naÏve confession. I feel more like sighing as I recollect the years during the summers and winters of which the same query advanced with me into the dignity of a problem. There were several important ends to be compassed in the successful settlement of the question. To accomplish an agreeable variety in the family bill of fare; to accommodate appetites and individual preferences to the season and state of the local market; to avoid incongruous associations of meats, vegetables, sauces, entrÉes and desserts; to build fragments into a structure about which should linger no flavor of staleness or sameness; so to manage a long succession of meals that yesterday’s repast and the more frugal one of to-day should not suggest the alternation of fat and lean in the Hibernian’s pork, or the dutiful following of penance upon indulgence; to shun, with equal care, the rock of parsimony and the whirlpool of extravagance;—but why extend the list of dilemmas? Are they not written in the mental chronicles of every housewife whose conscience—be her purse shallow or deep—will not excuse her from a continual struggle with the left-overs? Such uncompromising bits of facts do these same “left-overs” appear in the next day’s survey of ways, means, and capabilities, that timid mistresses are the less to blame for often winking at the Alexandrine audacity with which the cook has disposed of the knotty subject by emptying platters and tureens into the swill-pail,—which should stand for the armorial bearings of her tribe wherever found,—or satisfied indolence, and what goes with her for humanity, by tossing crusts, bones, and “cold scraps” into the yawning basket of the beggar at the basement door.

One of these days I mean to write an article, scientific and practical, upon the genus, “basket-beggar.” For the present, take the word of one who has studied the species in all its varieties,—who has suffered long, and certainly not been unkind in the acquisition of experience upon this head,—and prohibit their visits entirely, and at all seasons. “Cold cuts” and the “heels” of loaves belong to you as certainly as do hot joints and unmutilated pies. Issue your declaration of independence to the effect that you choose to dispense charity in your own way, and that, as an intelligent Christian woman, you can better judge by what methods to relieve want and aid the really worthy poor, than can the ignorant, irresponsible creature who lavishes what costs her nothing upon every chance speculator whose lying whine excites her pity. Sympathy which, by the way, would generally lie dormant, were the listener to the piteous tale obliged to satisfy the petitioner from her own purse or wardrobe.

Returning from what is not, although it may seem to be a digression, let us talk together more briefly than is our wont in these familiar conferences, of the considerations that have moved and sustained me in the preparation of this volume, and which will, I hope, make it a welcome and useful counsellor to you. First, then, the suggestion and interrogation of sincere seekers for helpful advice pertaining to that most important of the triad of daily meals—“The Family Dinner,” superadded to my own observation and experience of the difficulties that beset the subject. Secondly, the discovery, that so far as I have been able to push my investigations—and my searching has been keen and extensive—no directory upon this particular branch of culinary endeavor has been published, at least none in the English language. We have had books, some of them admirable helps to skilful, no less than to inexperienced housekeepers, upon dinner-giving, and company dinners, and “little dinner” parties, not to refer to the mighty mountain of manuals upon cookery in general; but, up to the time of the present writing, I have found nothing that, to my appreciation, meets the case stated by the friend whose plaint heads this chapter.

My aim has been to write out, for seven days of four weeks in each month, a menu adapted, in all things, to the average American market; giving meats, fish, vegetables, and fruits in their season, and, so far as I could do so upon paper, rendering a satisfactory account of every pound of meat, etc., brought, by my advice, into the kitchen. I have taken the liberty accorded me by virtue of our long and intimate acquaintanceship, of inspecting not only the contents of your market-basket, but each morning the treasures of larder and refrigerator; of offering counsel concerning crumbs, bones, and such odds-and-ends as are held in contempt by many otherwise thrifty managers—to wit, other cold vegetables than potatoes, and dry crusts of bread and cake, while of gravy and dripping I have made specialties. I have tried, moreover, to inspire such respect for made-over dinners, as we feel for the pretty rugs made of the ravellings of Axminster carpets. We do not attempt to impose them upon ourselves or our friends as “pure Persian.” But neither do we blush for them because Mrs. Million Aire across the way would scorn to give them house-room. Let “Consistency” be stamped upon every appointment of your household, and even the parvenue opposite cannot despise you. Once learn the truth that moderate, or even scanty means do not make meanness or homeliness a necessity, and act upon the lesson, and you can set criticism at defiance. Apropos to this point of consistency, let me say, in explanation, not apology, for the small space devoted to company-dinners, that I have dealt with them upon the principle that ten times one makes ten. Having, in emulation of the Eastern beauty, carried the calf with ease for four weeks, you will hardly appreciate the difference in the weight of the cow you lift upon the fifth. In plainer phrase, give John and the children good dinners, well-cooked, and daintily served, every day, and the entertainment of half-a-dozen friends in addition to the family party will cease to be a stupendous undertaking. They have a saying in the Southern States that aptly expresses the labor and excitement attendant upon such an event in too many families; the straining after Mrs. Million Aire’s diners À la Russe, which presuppose the despotism of a chef in the kitchen, and the solemn pomp of a Chief Butler in the salle À manger. The Southern description of the frantic endeavor is—“Trying to put the big pot into the little one,” and it is invariably used with reference to preparations for company. Be content, my dear sister, to put into your little pot only so much as it will decently hold, and be thankful that you have in it a sure gauge of responsibility.

I have spoken of dinners for four weeks in each month. I have written receipts for this number, not in forgetfulness of the fact that there is but one February per annum, but because the need of adapting the bills of fare to the days of the week, instead of the month, was absolute, and if I wished the Dinner Year-Book to be a perpetual calendar, I must say nothing of the broken week that sometimes ends and sometimes begins the month. The difficulty of disposing satisfactorily of the two or three odd days brought to my mind, while blocking out my work, the summary manner in which one of my baby-girls once dismissed a somewhat analogous difficulty.

“My dear,” I said to her one night as she concluded her prayer at my knee, “you have forgotten to pray for your little cousins. How did that happen? Don’t you want our Heavenly Father to take care of them?”

She made a motion of again bending her knees, yawned sleepily, and tumbled into bed.

“Can’t help it, mamma! Baby is too tired! Horace and Eddie must scuffle for themselves just this one night!”

I have given you twenty-eight—nay, counting your possible company-meal—twenty-nine dinners in succession to little purpose if you cannot collate from previous receipts one or two for yourself, and be the better for the practice. I need hardly say that I do not anticipate or desire slavish adherence to the plan sketched for your day or week. I have sketched—that is all—not worked out a sum in which addition or subtraction would materially affect the sum-total. The framework is, I would fain hope, symmetrical. I expect you to build thereupon as convenience or discretion may dictate.