Meaning & Analysis
It is preferable to be patient and wait for cooks to prepare food properly than to eat hastily prepared food and consequently require the services of a doctor or 'mediciner' due to illness.
Insights
Prevention vs. Cure
The proverb serves as a powerful metaphor for the wisdom of prevention over cure. It advises that taking precautionary measures and exercising patience in any endeavor is far wiser than rushing and having to fix the resulting problems.
Value of Patience
It champions the virtue of patience and foresight. 'Waiting on the cooks' symbolizes a deliberate, careful process, while needing a 'mediciner' represents the negative outcome of impulsive actions driven by immediate desire.
Proactive Well-being vs. Reactive Remedy
The proverb distinguishes between sources of well-being (cooks, nutrition) and remedies for crisis (mediciners). It advocates for proactively cultivating positive conditions rather than reactively managing negative ones.
Historical Health and Diet
The proverb reflects a pre-modern understanding of health, where food safety was paramount and medical remedies were often unreliable and dangerous. A good cook was a literal guardian of health, making prevention not just an option but a vital survival strategy. It elevates the domestic act of cooking to a matter of life and death.
The Economy of Prevention
This proverb serves as a timeless economic and practical warning: investing time and care upfront (patience) is far less costly than dealing with the consequences of haste and neglect (medical bills, lost time). It applies to finance, engineering, and personal projects.
Psychology of Impatience
The proverb subtly critiques impatience and the desire for instant gratification. It frames the choice not just between waiting and acting, but between two very different futures: one of sustenance and well-being, the other of suffering and remedy.
Rhetorical Devices
Antithesis
The proverb's power lies in the stark contrast between the 'cook' (symbolizing health, patience, and prevention) and the 'mediciner' (symbolizing sickness, crisis, and cure). This antithesis makes the choice and its consequences vivid and memorable.
Symbolism
The proverb uses 'cooks' and 'mediciners' as archetypal figures representing broader concepts. They are not just individuals but stand-ins for the entire systems of preventative care and reactive treatment.
Parallelism
The balanced structure 'Better wait on the X than the Y' creates a rhythmic, parallel construction that makes the proverb easy to recall and apply.
Transcription
Quotations
Better byd the cooks nor the medicineris.
To be better for the Baker to come than the Physician, viz. a sign of health of body.
[As in a.1598 Ferg.].
(the Cooks as the Leaches).
Cross References
- See DÜR., II, no. 49.
- C635a A good cook is half a physician
- P260 Kitchen physic is the best physic.
Annotations
- Better have Patience till your Meat be ready, than, by eating it raw, or ill dress'd, to throw your self into Diseases.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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