I know well-to-do farmers' wives who do not cook what they call "butcher's meat," three times a month, or poultry above twice a year.

Dried and salt meat and fish replenish what an Irish cook once described to me as "the _meat corner_ of the stomach." "Half-a-dozen eggs wouldn't half fill it, mem;" she protested, in defence of the quantity of steak and roast devoured daily below-stairs.
Our native housewife does not make the effort to crowd this cavity with the product of her poultry yard.

Eggs of all ages are marketable and her pride in the limited number she uses in filling up her household is comic, yet pathetic.

Cream is the chrysalis of butter at thirty cents a pound; to work so much as a tablespoonful into dishes for daily consumption would be akin to the sinful enormity of lighting a fire with dollar bills.

She sends her freshly-churned, golden rolls to "the store" in exchange for groceries, including _cooking butter_ to be used in the manufacture of cake and pastry.
These she _must_ have.