1T 682
(Testimonies for the Church Volume 1 682)
It is a religious duty for those who cook to learn how to prepare healthful food in different ways, so that it may be eaten with enjoyment. Mothers should teach their children how to cook. What branch of the education of a young lady can be so important as this? The eating has to do with the life. Scanty, impoverished, ill-cooked food is constantly depraving the blood by weakening the blood-making organs. It is highly essential that the art of cookery be considered one of the most important branches of education. There are but few good cooks. Young ladies consider that it is stooping to a menial office to become a cook. This is not the case. They do not view the subject from a right standpoint. Knowledge of how to prepare food healthfully, especially bread, is no mean science. (1T 682.1) MC VC
In many families we find dyspeptics, and frequently the reason of this is the poor bread. The mistress of the house decides that it must not be thrown away, and they eat it. Is this the way to dispose of poor bread? Will you put it into the stomach to be converted into blood? Has the stomach power to make sour bread sweet? heavy bread light? moldy bread fresh? (1T 682.2) MC VC
Mothers neglect this branch in the education of their daughters. They take the burden of care and labor, and are fast wearing out, while the daughter is excused, to visit, to crochet, or study her own pleasure. This is mistaken love, mistaken kindness. The mother is doing an injury to her child, which frequently lasts her lifetime. At the age when she should be capable of bearing some of life’s burdens, she is unqualified to do so. Such will not take care and burdens. They go light-loaded, excusing themselves from responsibilities, while the mother is pressed down under her burden of care, as a cart beneath sheaves. The daughter does not mean to be unkind; but she is careless and heedless, or she would notice the tired look and mark the expression of pain upon the countenance of the mother, and would seek to do her part to bear the heavier part of the burden and relieve the mother, who must have freedom from care or be brought upon a bed of suffering and, it may be, of death. (1T 682.3) MC VC