Eliza Leslie
The success of her little book entitled 'Seventy-five Receipts in Cakes, Pastry, and Sweetmeats.' has encouraged the author to attempt a larger and more miscellaneous work on the subject of cookery, comprising as far as practicable whatever is most useful in its various departments; and particularly adapted to the domestic economy of her own country. Designing it as a manual of American housewifery, she has avoided the insertion of any dishes whose ingredients cannot be procured on our side of the Atlantic, and which require for their preparation utensils that are rarely found except in Europe. Also, she has omitted every thing which may not, by the generality of tastes, be considered good of its kind, and well worth the trouble and cost of preparing. The author has spared no pains in collecting and arranging, perhaps the greatest number of practical and original receipts that have ever appeared in a similar work; flattering herself that she has rendered them so explicit as to be easily understood, and followed, even by inexperienced cooks. The directions are given as minutely as if each receipt was 'to stand alone by itself,' all references to others being avoided; except in some few instances to the one immediately preceding; it being a just cause of complaint that in some of the late cookery books, the reader, before finishing the article, is desired to search out pages and numbers in remote parts of the volume. In the hope that her system of cookery may be consulted with equal advantage by families in town and in country, by those whose condition makes it expedient to practise economy, and by others whose circumstances authorize a liberal expenditure, the author sends it to take its chance among the multitude of similar publications, satisfied that it will meet with as much success as it may be found to deserve, more she has no right to expect.
