PREFACE.

 The present work has no pretensions¹ to be a complete book on Cooking, but is simply a series of papers (which originally appeared in Cassell’s Magazine) in which the endeavour has been, to impart a certain amount of useful knowledge of the Art of Cooking, by giving recipes at greater length than would be possible in any ordinary Cookery Book.

Ordinary Cookery Books, though of the greatest utility, are, like dictionaries, seldom if ever read through. In the present work, which contains all the important elements and first principles of Cookery necessary to be learnt, in order to render ordinary works on the subject intelligible², the attempt has been made to so mingle³ recipes with anecdote⁴, that the perusal⁵ 6of the book may be a means of entertainment as well as of useful information.

The work is intended more for the drawing-room than for the kitchen, for the Author believes that, among the great mass of the middle classes in this country—the class that is suffering most from the incapacity of domestic servants—the remedy lies with themselves.

A helpless mistress too often makes helpless servants. It is in the hope of curing some of this wide-spread helplessness amongst ladies that the following papers have been written.

1 pretensions   

自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力

参考例句：

• The play mocks the pretensions of the new middle class. 这出戏讽刺了新中产阶级的装模作样。
• The city has unrealistic pretensions to world-class status. 这个城市不切实际地标榜自己为国际都市。

2 intelligible   

adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的

参考例句：

• This report would be intelligible only to an expert in computing.只有计算机运算专家才能看懂这份报告。
• His argument was barely intelligible.他的论点不易理解。

3 mingle   

vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往

参考例句：

• If we mingle with the crowd,we should not be noticed.如果我们混在人群中，就不会被注意到。
• Oil will not mingle with water.油和水不相融。

4 anecdote   

n.轶事，趣闻，短故事

参考例句：

• He departed from the text to tell an anecdote.他偏离课文讲起了一则轶事。
• It had never been more than a family anecdote.那不过是个家庭趣谈罢了。

5 perusal   

n.细读，熟读；目测

参考例句：

• Peter Cooke undertook to send each of us a sample contract for perusal.彼得·库克答应给我们每人寄送一份合同样本供阅读。
• A perusal of the letters which we have published has satisfied him of the reality of our claim.读了我们的公开信后，他终于相信我们的要求的确是真的。