Good cooking is not the result of accident, a species of good luck, as it were. There is reason in every process; a law governing every chemical change. A course of medical lectures does not make a physician, nor will a collection of choice recipes make a cook. There must be a knowledge of compounding, as well as of compiling; of baking, as well as of mixing; and above all, one must engage in the real doing. Theory alone will not suffice; but experience, which practice only can give, is of the utmost importance.
Mention will be made under this head of those forms of cooking only which enter into vegetarian cooking as usually understood.