Judge, 1912-09-14 · page 16 of 24
Judge — September 14, 1912 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the clash between old-fashioned, intuitive cooking methods and modern "scientific" approaches. The left column presents traditional recipe language—vague measurements like "size of yer fist" and "choc'lit the size of yer wrist"—spoken in dialect, emphasizing how recipes were memorized and passed orally among ordinary people. The right column mocks contemporary "scientific" cooking with absurdly precise, jargon-heavy instructions using metric measurements, temperatures in centigrade, and technical terms like "inspissated" (thickened). A poem muses that this modern age turns "simple folk into fanatics" through excessive specialization. The cartoons show domestic life: a nurse announcing a young doctor's patients; a couple discussing rainy-day preparedness; two men discussing their wives' cooking abilities. The satire targets educated pretension—how the professional class uses complicated language and "scientific" methods to mystify ordinary tasks, making cooking unnecessarily complex. The repeated joke is that modern expertise often obscures rather than improves everyday knowledge.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Nurse (to young doctor) —"* Your practice is waiting, sir. Tradition. Scien GONE are the good, old, carstess days, When every dame wore hoops and stays, And cooking was an artless art, Where recipes were known by heart, And, sounding somewhat hit or miss, Were retailed orally like this: “To short’nin’ the size of yer fist when it’s tight, add sugar as much as will stick; then break sever'l eggs (if they're cheap) and beat light, into clab- ber that’s tasty and thick. If clabber ain't handy and’s trouble to get, take sody enough on a spoon and mix it with sweet milk sufficient to wet (and mind you don’t add it too soon). Now grate enough nutmeg to cover a dime and choc'lit the size of yer wrist, and throw in some flour, a bit at a time, and knead it up smooth with yer fist. A sensible number of nuts is required and crumbs you might otherwise waste, then raisins and allspice as much as desired; vanilly, you flavor to taste. Now mess PREPARED. Clarente—"' Why don't you keep something for a rainy day ?"" Clara—"‘ Don't be silly, dear, Haven't I coat and umbrella you ever saw ?”” ce versus up together and slap in a tin, well but- tered with cottonseed oil; be sure that your batter ain’t any too thin, and if. it’s too thick it'll spoil. And place in A PAIR OF INNER TUBES. the oven (not too near the back) and keep the fire high (if you wish), and bake until done and re- move from the rack and turn out on some sort of dish."" Come is the age of weird surprise, When even babies syllo- gize; Where ‘‘isms,’’‘‘ologies”’ and ‘‘atics’’ Turn simple folk into fanatics. It takes a college-bred to see the prettiest rain- . Into a modern recipe: Shall I show him in ?"* “Carefully, in thirty strokes, beat up forty grams of yolks; add kilo sugar, then beat for thirty strokes again. Drip one liter milk that’s made hot at eighty centigrade. Steadily, for half an hour, sift two kilograms of flour. Fold the whites when inspissated to a gram of walnuts, grated. Stir four times and introduce one cl. of lemon Pour the batter slowly in toa patent bottom tin. Keep electric oven right up to ninety Fahrenheit. Bake till sixty minutes pass; turn it out on sterile glass.’’ one juice. I dine on scientific cake, But, oh, the things maw used to make! Jane Buse Many men wouldn't know what to do with Opportunity if it came around. EXPERTS. “Talking of cooks, my wife can make a veal cutlet look like a turkey " “Huh! My wife can make me look like a lobster."” : comicbooks.com