Our Brahmin cook has first purified himself with a bath, and then cooked the dinner in thoroughly cleansed utensils, but he serves it to you on a plate on the bare floor which has been pasted over with earth and cow-dung and his cloth, albeit daily washed, is so dirty that it looks as if it were never washed. Mark here, the gloves-lest the man touches anything with his bare fingers! Maybe, he is dancing on the dough-why, because he may knead it thoroughly well with the whole pressure of his body, no matter if the sweat of his brow gets mixed with it! (Fortunately nowadays, machines are widely used for the task.) After all this sacrilege, when the bread is finished, it is placed on a porcelain dish covered with a snow-white napkin and is carried by the servant dressed in a spotless suit of clothes with white gloves on then it is laid upon the table spread over with a clean table-cloth. But all the same, he has snow-white clothes and cap. He never thinks of washing his hands when he comes from outside, and begins his cooking at once. Taking out his handkerchief he blows his nose vigorously, and again with the same hand he, perchance, kneads the dough. The Western cook scarcely bathes moreover, he tastes with a spoon the cooking he is engaged in, and does not think much of redipping the spoon into the pot. Every day our cook first bathes and changes his clothes before entering the kitchen he neatly cleanses all the utensils and the hearth with water and earth, and if he chances to touch his face, nose, or any part of his body, he washes his hands before he touches again any food. There is greater purity observed in our cooking than in any other country on the other hand, we have not that perfect regularity, method and cleanliness of the English table. Now hear something about the Western art of cooking.

Swami vivekananda on meat