Advice about Husbands

A good many husbands are utterly spoiled by mismanagement. Some women keep them constantly in hot water, others let them freeze by carelessness and indifference. Some keep them in a pickle all their lives. It cannot be supposed that any husband can be tender and well managed in this way, but they are rather delicious when properly treated.

In selecting your husband, you should not be guided by the silvery appearance, as in buying a mackerel, nor by the golden tint, as if you wanted a salmon.

Be sure and select him for yourself, as tastes differ, do not go to market for him, as the best are always brought to your door.

It is far better to have none unless you will patiently learn how to cook him.

A preserving kettle of the finest porcelain is best, but if you have nothing but an earthen ware pipkin, it will do with care.

See that the linen in which you wrap him is nicely washed and mended with the required buttons and strings nicely sewed on.

Tie him in the kettle by a strong silk cord, called comfort, as the one called duty is apt to be weak, and they are apt to fly out of the kettle and be burnt and crusty on the edge, since, like crabs and lobsters, you have to cook them alive.

Make a clear, steady fire of love, neatness and cheerfulness. Set him near this, as it seems to agree with him.

If he sputters and fizzles, do not be anxious, some husbands do this until they are quite done. Add a little sugar in the form of what confections call kisses, but no vinegar or pepper on any account.

A little spice improves them, but it must be used in judgment.

Do not stick any sharp instrument into him to see if he is becoming tender, stir him gently, watch the while lest he be too flat and too close to the kettle, and so become useless. You cannot fail to know when he is done.

If thus treated, you will find him digestible, agreeing nicely with you and your children, and he will keep as long as you want, unless you become careless and set him in too cold a place.

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I found this on the third page of the Friendship Thimble Social Cook Book, a small cookbook "complied by Friendship Thimble Social", dated 1915-1927. It was my grandmother's. It is a very interesting cookbook due to the fact that, like most old recipe books, most of the recipes only list ingredients (in paragraph form) without any instructions on putting those ingredients together.

It also holds some non-food recipes. For example:

"Syrup for Colds. (Very good.)-- 10 cents worth of licorice, 10 cents worth wild cherry bark, 10 cents worth rock candy, 2 lemons, 10 cents worth paregoric, 2 pounds brown sugar, about 3 pints water. Put water and wild cherry bark on stove and simmer until strength is out: crush licorice and rock candy, strain cherry bark. Put it all together and cook until it becomes a syrup. --Mrs. Preston Lear."

And more advice:

"Such is man! There is no use in having his heart if you do not have his stomach. Mind me and mark me! Do not neglect your cooking. Kissing does not last; good cooking does."

Chew on that:-).

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