Name: Marion Harland's Complete Cook Book
Author: Marion Harland

Marion Harland's Complete Cook Book

Transcriber’s note:

In the section Pickled nutmeg melons, melons change to mangoes part way through, viz. “Lay the mangoes in strong brine for three days. Drain off the brine and freshen in pure water for twenty-four hours. “Green” as you would cucumbers—that is, have a kettle lined with green vine leaves, and lay the mangoes evenly within it, scattering powdered alum over the layers. A piece of alum as large as a pigeon’s egg will be enough for a two-gallon kettleful. Fill with cold water; cover with vine leaves, three deep; put a close lid or inverted pan over all, and steam over a slow fire five or six hours, not allowing the water to boil. When the mangoes are a fine green remove the leaves and lay the melons in cold water until cold and firm.” This has been corrected.

MARION HARLAND’S COMPLETE COOK BOOK

A Practical and Exhaustive Manual of Cookery and Housekeeping

Containing Thousands of Carefully Proved Recipes—Prepared for the Housewife, not for the Chef—and Many Chapters on the Care and Management of the Home—the Final Expression of Her Life’S Experience

MARION HARLAND

Author of Common Sense in the Household, Etc.

New Edition, Revised and Enlarged

Indianapolis The Bobbs-Merrill Company Publishers

June

March

Press of Braunworth & Co. Bookbinders and Printers Brooklyn, N. Y.

FISH 344

FLOATING ISLAND 520-558

FONDU OF CHEESE 202

FRUIT SALAD, GARNISHED 232

FRUIT SALAD, IN BANANA-SKIN 232

GAME 416

GAME PIE IN NAPKINNED DISH 388

GRAPE FRUIT PREPARED FOR LUNCHEON 222

GREEN PEAS, GARNISHED 464

HALIBUT STEAK 100

HARLAND, MARION Frontispiece

ICE CREAM WITH HOT MAPLE SAUCE 582

INDIVIDUAL FLOATING ISLAND 558

IRISH STEW AND BROWNED POTATOES 364

LAMB CHOPS 126

LOBSTER CUTLETS AND WHIPPED POTATOES 156

MERINGUE GLACE AND WHIPPED CREAM 558

MOCK PIGEON 380

MOULD OF JELLY, GARNISHED 628

ORANGE MARMALADE 582

OYSTER COCKTAILS 222

OYSTER PATTIES 344

OYSTERS SCALLOPED 84

PAIR OF BOILED FOWLS, GARNISHED 404

PAIR OF ROAST DUCKS 404

PARTRIDGE, ROAST 416

PERCH, FRIED 100

PLUM PUDDING 520

POULTRY AND ENTRÉES 404

PUNCH, STRAWBERRY 628

QUAIL ON TOAST 416

RANGE SCREEN LOWERED TO SHUT IN HEAT 140

RANGE SCREEN PARTLY RAISED 138

SALADS 236

SALMON, BOILED 344

SANDWICHES

AFTERNOON TEA 582

BRUNETTE 216

CRESCENT 216

WHOLE WHEAT BREAD 216

SIDE-BOARD AND CHINA CLOSET 718

SMELTS, FRIED 100

SWEETBREADS, BRAISED 404

SWEETBREAD CUTLETS AND SARATOGA POTATOES 156

TABLES

AUTUMN DINNER 300

BRIDESMAID’S, WITH PINK ROSES 500

CHRISTMAS, DECORATED WITH HOLLY 300

DECORATED WITH PINE CONES 266

DECORATED WITH CHRYSANTHEMUMS AND PALMS 300

EASTER WEDDING BREAKFAST 266

ENGAGEMENT DINNER 500

JAPANESE DECORATIONS FOR CHILDREN’S LUNCHEON 266

SUNFLOWER LUNCHEON 500

A LITTLE DINNER 668

TOAST AND ANCHOVIES GARNISHED 464

TOMATO SALAD 236

TOMATO SALAD WITH WHIPPED CREAM DRESSING 236

TOMATOES, STUFFED AND GARNISHED 464

TROUT, FRIED 344

TURKEY, ROAST 404

VEAL AND BEEF 380

VEAL CHOPS AND SPINACH 380

VENISON, ROAST 416

WAFERS 616

WHIPPED CREAM 520

WHIPPED CREAM, GARNISHED WITH CHERRIES 558

WOODCOCK, ROAST 416

Marion Harland’s

Complete Cook Book

DEDICATORY PREFACE

To My Fellow Housekeepers, North, East, South and West:

Thirty-one years ago I wrote, dedicated to you, and sent to press, COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD.

The daring step was taken in direct opposition to the advice of all who knew my purpose. I was assured that I should lose the modest measure of literary reputation I had won by novels, short stories and essays if I persisted in the ignoble enterprise.

One critic forewarned me that “whatever I might write after this preposterous new departure would be tainted, for the imaginative reader and reviewer, with the odor of the kitchen.”

He may have been right. I do not know nor do I care whether his judgment or mine was the better. I gave my first cook-book to you because I knew from my own experience, as a young, raw and untaught housekeeper, that you needed just what I had to say. The hundreds of thousands of copies which have been sold, the thousands of grateful letters received from my toiling sisters, testify to that need and that to me was appointed the gracious task of supplying it.

Under the impulse of a conviction as solemn and as strong I offer you now a work embodying the best results of mature Housewifery. Or, as I would rather name it, Housemotherhood. Before I put pen to paper I stipulated that the contract with the publishers of THE COMPLETE COOK BOOK should contain a clause forbidding me to prepare and issue any book of a similar character during the next ten years.

Whatever I have to say to you through the medium of a printed and bound volume in all these years must be said here.

I have had this thought in my mind with the writing of every page. In every page, in every line, in every word I have done my best to serve you. I know you well enough to be assured that you will not forget this. If such a thing might be I would have every dish compounded according to my directions a souvenir to each of you of one who has given thirty-odd of the best years of a busy life to the task of dignifying housewifery into a profession, and ennobling the practice of it in your eyes.

For the fair degree of success which has followed these efforts I am thankful. Thankful, too, to those of you whose appreciation of my aim and my work has held up weary hands and stayed the failing heart.

This talk, made purposely as “familiar” as if I were face-to-face with each of you, is not a valedictory, but an au revoir. The book in your hands contains the gleanings of an active decade. Housewifery keeps pace with other professions in the swinging march of an Age of Wonders. I have faith in it and in myself to believe that I shall go on with the fascinating work of accumulating. I add, hopefully, I have also faith in you that, in the future as in the thirty years overpast, you will aid me in that accumulation.

MARION HARLAND.

MARKETING

MUTTON and BEEF may be called the Marketer’s Perennials. They are in season all the year round.

In buying mutton see that the fat is clear, very firm and white; the flesh close of grain, and ruddy. Buy your meat fresh, even if you mean to hang it in the cellar for a week—or longer in cold weather. “Begin fair!”

The best cuts of mutton are loin, saddle and leg. French chops are cut from the rib, the fat taken off and several inches of the bone cleaned from meat. They are nice to look at, good to eat—and expensive. You can do the trimming at home when you have once seen it done and save the extra cent or two paid for the word “French.” Loin chops are cheaper and usually more tender and better-flavored.

A more economical piece than the leg for the housewife who does her own marketing is the fore-quarter. You can bone and stuff part of it for a roast; the chops are almost as good as those cut from the loin, and the bones, when removed, make good stock for broth. The meat is really more juicy and sweet than that of the leg, and the cost from two to three cents a pound less.

LAMB is in season from May to November. What is sold under that name in winter is undersized mutton, and usually tough and dry.

BEEF—the Englishman’s main-stay—is quite as important in the American kitchen. Seek, in purchasing, for rosy, red meat, “shot” with cream-colored suet, dry and mealy, and a good outer coat of fat. Press the meat hard with the tip of your thumb. If it be flabby, and, after yielding to pressure, retains the dent, let it alone.

The rib roast is a choice cut. It is more comely when the bones are removed, the meat rolled and bound into a round. In which case insist upon having the trimmings sent home. You pay for them, and, when you order soup-meat, for that as well. Have the bones cracked, buy one pound of coarse lean beef for perhaps ten cents, and you have foundation for a good gravy soup, or stock enough for several hashes and stews.

The round costs about two-thirds as much as a rib-roast and half as much as a sirloin, and serves admirably for à la mode beef, or a pot-roast.

The sirloin steak is far more economical than a porterhouse. Remove the bone before cooking. This cut often contains really more of the coveted tenderloin than the porterhouse, and the rest of the steak is more tender, as a rule, than the dearer cut. Have the steak cut at least an inch thick.

Summer FRESH PORK is less desirable than winter lamb. It should be barred from the market after the first of May, and not allowed there before December first, if then. The lean should be pink, the fat pure white and solid, the skin like white, translucent parchment. That it is cheap and “goes far” recommends it to many people.

The chine, the spare-ibiss and loin are the best cuts for roasting. Pork chops are popular, and pork tenderloins much affected, even by epicures. Children and invalids should never touch unsalted pork at its best estate.

VEAL comes into market earlier than genuine spring lamb, and is seasonable all the summer through. Be sure it is not that most objectionable variety of what is rated by dieticians as a decidedly objectionable meat—known in slang usage as “bob-veal.” No calf should be slaughtered until at least six weeks old. The meat should be a clear, pale red, the fat very white, the texture firm. Veal may be innutritious, but the knuckle and, indeed, all the bony parts are invaluable for soups, containing much gelatinous matter. The breast, the fillet and loin are the most popular roasting pieces. Veal chops are really better eating and cheaper than the cutlet, and should be better known to the frugal housewife.

A calf’s head, scraped free of hair and well-cleaned, may be bought in country markets for fifty cents, and can be made into a dainty dish fit for John and John’s unexpected friend.

Sweetbreads are an acknowledged delicacy, and liver, properly cooked, will be approved by all.

By the way, lamb’s liver costs less than calf’s liver, and is more toothsome.

In choosing POULTRY, slip your bare forefinger under the wing where it joins the body and press hard with the nail. If the skin breaks easily, the fowl is probably young. Then try the tip of the breast-bone. If the cartilage gives readily and springs back slowly, the signs are still favorable. Next, look for hairs on the body and hard horny scales on the legs; for scrawny necks and a livid hue in the flesh—all unfavorable indications. Tough fowls should be cheaper far than tender. If your market-man calls them frankly “fowls,” commend his honesty, and if you contemplate a fricassee or chicken pie, reward his integrity by a purchase. Chickens may be “fowls,” yet good,—that is, nourishing and amenable to judicious “tendering.”

A veteran housewife, with a reputation to support, tells me she has but one method of securing really excellent meats for her table: “When a market-man sells me tough flesh, or superannuated poultry, or ancient fish, I give him warning. At the second offense, I transfer my custom to another dealer. The rule works well!”

It is especially useful when one would be certain of getting FRESH FISH. Now that fish and oysters are bedded in ice until the wiliest connoisseur may be mistaken in their age, it behooves the housemother to know, first of all, that she is dealing with a man with a conscience as free from reproach as she would have her halibut, salmon and oysters.

CARE OF HOUSEHOLD STORES

APPLES, POTATOES, TURNIPS, CARROTS, BEETS, etc., if stored in bins or barrels, should be picked over every week. The defective should be thrown away, and if there be any sign of sweating, the good should be spread out on the floor for a day or two to dry before they are repacked. Fruit should be handled with care. Bruises are incipient decay.

Particularly FINE FRUIT—apples and pears—should be wrapped, each separately, in soft, unprinted paper and, when packed, covered with fine, dry sand. Thus protected, they will keep plump and sweet for months, and need no overhauling meanwhile.

When practicable, keep VEGETABLES in large quantities elsewhere than in the cellar under your dwelling. Putrefying roots, cabbages and apples were responsible for much of the winter and spring diseases that puzzled our forefathers and mothers. Even now many a farmhouse reeks with “cellar smells,” as subtile and dangerous as sewer gas.

Keep EGGS in a cool place, yet not where they will be liable to freeze. If you store them in large quantities, pack in dry salt, the small end down. As an additional precaution, grease the shells, and pour melted lard upon the topmost layer of salt.

DRIED BEANS AND PEAS should be kept in wooden or tin boxes with close tops.

Have canisters with tight lids for COFFEE AND TEA, and keep them shut. Coffee loses strength and flavor when exposed to the air. Tea softens and molds.

In buying CRACKERS give the preference to those packed in tin cases. If they come in paper boxes, set these in tin receptacles, or in stone crocks with snugly fitting tops. Never throw away a tin cracker-box. It is always useful.

After CHEESE is cut, wrap in tin-foil, or in soft (unprinted) paper and keep in tin, or in stoneware.

CRUSTS, BITS OF TOAST, BROKEN CRACKERS AND STALE SLICES of bread should be kept in the kitchen closet until perfectly dry; then set in a moderate oven for an hour before crushing them with a rolling-pin. Keep these crumbs in a glass jar with a close top. They are invaluable for breading chops and croquettes, and for scallops.

Brown FLOUR by the quantity, and when cool put into glass jars ready for use.

SALT cakes and hardens in damp weather. Store it in your warmest and driest pantry. In very wet weather mix a little corn starch with that you put into the table salt-cellars.

FLOUR can not be kept too dry, nor can INDIAN OATMEAL, and all kinds of SUGAR. PULVERIZED SUGAR is as susceptible to humidity as salt. Tin boxes are absolutely necessary for keeping it tolerably free from lumps.

SPICES, PEPPER AND DRIED HERBS must also be shut up closely, and never be kept in open receptacles. Some brands of BAKING-POWDERS actually effervesce when exposed for days at a time to the open air. All are injured seriously by such exposure.

For all these staples and ingredients, have closely-fitting lids—and keep them on!

Store DRIED FRUITS in stone jars with covers; CANNED FRUITS AND PICKLES in glass jars; tumblers of JELLY AND MARMALADE should be kept in the dark. The light acts chemically upon the contents. If your storeroom be light, wrap jars and tumblers in thick paper tied on with strings.

As soon as MEAT comes home from market remove every bit of the brown paper enveloping it, and lay upon a clean dish near the ice—never upon it. FISH does not suffer from contact with ice. Meat does, becoming flabby and viscid. If your refrigerator is so arranged that you can hang the meat up, that the air can get at all sides of it, it will keep far better than when laid on a platter.

A good meat preserver is a box, as large as you can make room for in the refrigerator, the top and bottom of which are of wood, the sides of wire netting. Stout hooks are screwed into the inside of the top, and one of the netted sides is hinged, like a door. MEAT hung in this box will remain untainted and sweet much longer than when hung upon the side of the refrigerator. If you have a cool cellar, keep the meat box, thus prepared, upon a shelf in the darkest corner. The netting excludes insects, yet allows the air to enter, and by drying the surface forms an impervious coating which will keep in the juices.

Get large tin boxes for BREAD AND CAKE. Scald them frequently, drying thoroughly in the sun, and have clean, dry cloths in which to wrap each fresh batch of cake and baking of bread and biscuits.

It is an excellent plan to make cotton bags in which to put LETTUCE, CELERY, TOMATOES, SPINACH and other green things you wish to store in the refrigerator. The shelves and ice-box are kept clean, the esculents fresh. Many housewives have adopted the expedient within a few years, and none has abandoned it after a trial. The bags are of coarse, light cotton cloth, or of cheese-cloth, and go into the weekly wash.

TABLE BUTTER, wrapped in dampened cheesecloth squares, keeps sweet and firm. These squares are as large as a child’s pocket handkerchief, and hemmed to prevent raveling. Half a dozen will last a year, unless the “hired gurrel” takes them for dish-cloths.

BUTTER, made into balls for the table, should be kept in a bowl of cold water in the refrigerator, and the water changed every morning.

Keep in your own mind, and so far as you can, impress upon the conscience of servants, that whatever has been once in the refrigerator must be returned to cold storage, unless used. Meats soften and taint, butter turns rancid, fruits and vegetables decay when this precaution is neglected.

KITCHEN UTENSILS

It is not my purpose to discourage the housewife by a list of culinary furniture.

The readers of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” may recall that Mr. St. Clair declared the evolution of irreproachable course dinners through such means as his negro cook employed in a smoky little kitchen with scanty store of pots and kettles—to be “nothing short of genius.” I have, before now, visited kitchens environed with pot-closets, where hung a glittering assortment of every conceivable patented “indispensable”—and sat down in the dining-room to greasy, watery soups, scorched meats, soggy bread and curdled custards.

It is well to have a plentiful supply of tools. If there be not sense and skill behind them, failure is a foregone conclusion.

The object of this brief chapter is to tell our housemothers how to keep such pots and kettles, griddles and pans in working order, and how to make them last a reasonable time.

To begin with—get good ware. The clumsy iron vessels that gathered grime and soot over the fires kept up by our grand-dames have been pushed aside by lighter and cleaner utensils of various sorts. Coppers—that must be as bright outside as they were within, and gathered unto themselves murderous verdigris, if not cleaned before each using, with salt and scalding vinegar—were banished, and righteously, long ago, in favor of galvanized, porcelain, granite, agate-iron and nickel-steel-plated wares that neither rust nor green-mold. These wares are as easily kept clean as stone china, and if less durable than iron and copper that descended from mother to daughter and even down to the third generation, last reasonably well when properly handled.

Pots, kettles and the like should be set upon the range—not thumped and banged. A nicked cooking utensil is a disgrace to the handler thereof.

Cracks and scaling-off are still oftener the result of sudden overheating and of allowing an empty vessel to stand over the fire. The teakettle boils dry, the soup seethes and simmers until bones and meat stick to the bottom of the pot. To complete the wreck, the ignorant or indifferent cook snatches off the misused utensil and runs with it to the sink, turning the cold-water faucet upon the heated metal. Yet the mistress marvels at the semi-yearly necessity of replenishing kitchen tools!

Never put away a vessel which is not both clean and dry. Wash with hot water, good soap, and household ammonia. Use mop and soap-shaker, if you would spare your hands and do justice to bottoms, seams and sides of pot and pan. Rinse off the suds, wipe and set, upside down, upon the range for thirty seconds to make assurance doubly sure.

Hang up everything that furnishes the semblance of a loop by which it may be suspended. And always in its own place, so that you could find each in the dark.

Cover the shelves of the crockery closet with strips of scalloped oilcloth that come for the purpose, and the shelves on which you keep metal pie-plates and pans with stout paper, pinked at the edges.

If you use tin milk-pans, have them seamless, scald daily with boiling water into which you have stirred a little baking soda, rinse with pure water and stand in the sun.

Wooden ware should be scrubbed with a clean, stiff brush and soda-and-water, rinsed well, wiped and dried near the fire or in the open window.

Buy three qualities of dish-towels—the finest for glass, silver and china; the second best for crockery used in kitchen work; the third for heavy kettles, griddles, etc., and have them washed every day. Even when no grease adheres to them they have a musty odor if used several times without washing.

Rub gridirons and griddles with dry salt before each using, wiping it off with a clean towel.

Never undertake to polish your stove until it is quite cold, and do not rekindle the fire too soon when the polishing is done.

Next to the range, or stove, the sink is the most important feature of the kitchen.

“Let me see a woman’s sink, and I will tell you what sort of a manager she is!” was the saying of a shrewd housemother who had seen much of life and of cooks.

The waste-pipe should be flushed every day when the water in the boiler is hottest. During the flushing two tablespoonfuls of strong ammonia should be poured down the grating over the waste. Once a week in summer add a handful of crushed washing-soda. And keep the sink, itself, clean all the time!

Grease should never accumulate upon the sides and in the corners; tea leaves and other débris never be clotted over the vent.

A stout whisk-brush must hang above the sink and be used freely in scrubbing it. When the whisk becomes stained and flabby, burn it up and get another. A dirty brush, mop or dish-cloth makes—not removes—dirt.

Follow these directions, and if the outer drain-pipes are properly built, you will have no occasion to employ disinfectants and deodorizers.

The old New England kitchen was the family sitting-room in winter, and in thousands of farm-houses, this is still the custom. Since no device can make the sink and its appurtenances ornamental, or passably comely, have a tall folding screen that may be drawn in front of it when the day’s work is done. The mistress who never sits in her own kitchen, but wishes that her maids should have a pleasant resting-place in the evenings, may offer the screen for their use. The better class of “girls” will appreciate the kindly thought.

CHEMISTRY IN THE KITCHEN

Here again I shall be brief and practical. Nobody would read this page were I to prate learnedly (apparently) of proteids, phosphates, dextrine, hyposulphites and computed chemical and dietetic values. The purpose of the honest cook-book is to help, not hinder.

A few facts relative to chemical effects and changes in every-day cookery should be tabulated.

For example, the mission of the much-used and oft-abused bicarbonate of soda—familiarly called “baking-soda”—is imperfectly apprehended by those who handle it most frequently. The average cook does this handling heavily. “Soda makes bread and biscuits rise,” is the sum of her knowledge and the aim of her practice in this direction.

Soda should be measured as accurately as if it were a potent drug, and never used except in combination with an acid. Even then, lean to the side of mercy in measuring. One even teaspoonful of soda to two rounded teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar, one even teaspoonful of soda to two cupfuls of buttermilk, or “bonny clabber,” one even teaspoonful of soda to one cupful (one-half pint) of molasses, cause what may be considered an equitable effervescence, liberating gases that lighten dough and batter without making them unwholesome. The “greeny-yellowy” streaks in farmhouse quick biscuits are poisonous, but the alkali is not in fault. Soda should never be driven in single harness.

The first stage of incipient decomposition is acidity. If, when a slightly-suspected fowl or cut of meat is to be boiled or stewed, a teaspoonful of soda be thrown into the pot as soon as the boil begins, violent effervescence will attest the presence of the disturbing acid. This subsiding will leave the meat free from unpleasant taint.

Beefsteak and chops, which are just a trifle “touched,” may be restored to sanity by a bath of soda and water, well rubbed in. Butter that has suffered in quality through the neglect of the maker in not working all the milk out may be made tolerable for kitchen use by working it over in iced water in which a little soda has been dissolved. After which the butter should be wrapped in a salted cloth with a lump of charcoal in the outer fold.

Ammonia is another beneficent agent in correcting natural or artificial deficiencies. A bottle of household ammonia should be as invariably an adjunct to the kitchen sink and that of the waitress’s pantry as the soap-dish. It “kills” grease by a chemical combination with it, and lends luster to silver by the same.

Dry soda, laid upon a burn or scald, heals, but not merely by excluding the air. Flour would do that as well. The alkali acts directly upon the decomposing skin and vitiated juices of the flesh. The sting of a bee, wasp or hornet is formic acid; that of a mosquito something akin to it. Ammonia, applied instantly, neutralizes the venom and eases the smart.

In the composition of salad dressing, stirring the oil, vinegar, salt, pepper and dash of mustard together, long and skilfully, makes a chemical emulsion smoother and more palatable than the hasty slap-dash mixture too often served as “French dressing.”

Bread-dough which has begun to sour can be brought to terms by working into the batch a little saleratus dissolved in boiling water, which is then allowed to become lukewarm before it is kneaded faithfully through the dough. A like solution should be beaten hard into griddle-cake batter that has a pungent smell.

Vinegar and lemon juice are invaluable aids in the business of “tendering” tough meats. Beefsteak, covered for some hours with vinegar or lemon juice, and olive oil, is made eatable by the action of the acid upon the fibers which are further “suppled” by the oil.

Vinegar put into the water in which a fowl or mutton is boiled will serve the same purpose, and a dash of vinegar in boiling fish removes the strong oily taste that would otherwise cling to it.

Powdered alum stirred into turbid water—an even tablespoonful to four gallons—will cause a precipitate and a settlement. The clear water may be drawn off cautiously and used for washing and even for drinking, having no perceptible taste of the alum.

A bag of powdered charcoal sunk in a pork barrel will keep the brine sweet through the winter, without blackening it or the meat.

Javelle water, invaluable for removing mildew and rust-stains, may be made at home in the following manner:

Place four pounds of bicarbonate of soda in a large granite or porcelain-lined can, and pour over it four quarts of hot water.

Stir with a stick until the soda has dissolved, add a pound of chloride of lime and stir until this also has dissolved.

Allow the liquid to cool in the pan, strain the clear portion through thin cloths into wide-mouthed bottles or jugs and cork tightly for use.

The part that contains the sediment may also be bottled and used for cleaning sinks, kitchen tables, etc.

An excellent detersive for cleansing and sweetening a kitchen sink is washing soda. Dissolve a couple of handfuls in hot water and when boiling hot pour down the drain.

To prevent oil-lamps from smoking or giving forth a disagreeable odor, boil the wicks in vinegar, then dry in the sun.

CARVING

The present mode of serving meats after the manner of the table d’hôte—the carving done in the kitchen, and the results placed upon the platter to be served to the guests by butler or waiter—has in large measure done away with the demand for hints to the master or mistress of the home upon the art of carving. To those who adhere to the earlier custom, directions can be merely outlines; for the single means by which one may become an adept as a carver is in the repeated practice which is required for skill in any work of manipulation.

A prerequisite to carving is appropriate implements. The knife, the edge of which has been dulled upon the bread-board, or hacked in the offices of the kitchen, where it has been employed as the scullion’s tool, may puncture and tear, but it will not carve. In the hand of even the most skilful it is exasperation.

The mistress of the home owes it to the head of the table, as well as to the ease of mind of her guests, to see that the carving set—the knife and its companion fork—shall be in the best condition for their work.

To carve a roast of beef

This will depend upon the form in which the roast is placed upon the platter. If it include several ribs, furnishing sufficient room for a base of bone, it may be so put before the carver that he may cut perpendicularly in thin slices, passing the knife in a line parallel with the ribs. If, however, the roast be laid upon the side, as is usual, the same direction is to be observed as to the cutting in lines parallel to the ribs.

Where a tenderloin roast is to be carved—having but the one large bone which divides the tenderloin from the more solid portion—there is little choice whether the knife is drawn with or transversely to the grain: the tenderness of the meat is assured in either case. It may be more convenient to sever entirely the tenderloin from the firmer part of the roast before beginning to slice. This will leave the carver at liberty to serve a portion of each quality of the meat to every guest, as the tenderloin may not be of sufficient size to serve to all.

To carve a leg of lamb or mutton

If the small ribs—which are generally taken off for chops—are left with the leg, the carver is free to ask the preference of each guest for the rib or solid slice. The chops may be detached by drawing the point of the knife between the ribs, and—if the butcher has properly done his part—in severing the light cartilage at the backbone, as in parting vertebræ. The fleshy portion of the leg will be more tender if cut in slices at a right angle with the bone, as one would carve a ham; that is, across the grain. Some carvers, however, prefer to cut lamb or mutton with the grain, as it enables them to serve a portion more or less thoroughly cooked, according to the preference of those to be helped. These directions apply equally to carving a haunch of venison.

To carve poultry

The fowl—whether turkey, chicken or duck—should be placed on its back upon the platter. This will permit the carver to transfix the breastbone firmly with the fork; for, upon the stanchness of the hold here will depend the success of all further operations. The wing from the nearer side should first be dissevered by a gash of the knife underneath the socket. This, if the fowl be tender, is easily accomplished with a single cut. The first and second joints of the leg may next be separated, and the second or upper joint removed from its junction with the body, as was the wing. This is easily effected by a slight cut and pressure of the bone outward. The sidebone may be taken off by running the blade directly along the backbone; for it adheres only by a filament of skin and the soft fat that attaches to it on this line.

These joints having been taken off, the breast is now entirely exposed, and further carving is a very simple matter. The removal of the leg has laid bare the cavity, from which the dressing may be lifted with a spoon, and the cutting of a few slices from the breast, near the neck, will open the crop with the stuffing usually placed there to plump the fowl. The main joint and the pinion of the wing may be severed by cutting the cartilage at the junction of the two bones.

To carve fish

There is an art in carving fish, and it is confined to a single direction. It is to open with a knife at the back, drawing the blade the whole distance from head to tail just above the backbone, and pressing the meat loose from its fastening. Portions may then be served by cutting transversely with the backbone. Fish so carved is freed from the intricate mass of small bones which are sure to mingle with the flesh if it be cut in any other way. The head, if not already removed, should first be taken off, and the collar or shoulder-bone lifted from the fish.

SERVING AND WAITING

If a butler be engaged to do the family serving and waiting, he understands his business, or he should not apply for the place. The rules written out here are for the benefit of households where but one or, at the most, two maids are kept. I assume that the waitress takes charge of the table after the mistress has once shown her how it is to be set.

By the way, I hope you call her a “maid,” not a “girl.” The latter word has been so rubbed and soiled by persistent usage on the part of domesticated foreigners, who shed the name of “servant” as soon as they stamp upon American soil, and by the handling of would-be “genteel” housewives, that people of refinement hesitate to touch it. What the old-fashioned New Englanders called “hired help” would shake the dust off the soles of the shoes they are not yet quite used to wearing, were you to allude to them as “servants.” “Maid” sounds well, bearing to their tickled ears a certain dignity not unsuited to their new estate.

Beginning with the first meal of the day, we will suppose a cereal, fruit, one dish of meat, bread and butter, potatoes, hot muffins, tea and coffee—a typical American breakfast, in fact.

A fruit-plate, holding a doily, on which is a finger-bowl half-filled with water, cold in summer, tepid in winter, is set for each person. If fruit that requires paring or cutting is to be eaten, lay a fruit-knife on the plate. If oranges are served, add an orange-spoon. At the right of the plate are the water tumbler, a knife, with the sharp edge toward the plate, and a cereal-spoon, bowl upward. At the left should be the bread-and-butter plate, the fork, tines upward, and a folded napkin.

In front of each plate are a pepper-cruet and a salt-cellar.

In the center of the board have a bowl of flowers, or something green and growing, all the year round. At the foot, carving-knife and fork, a steel or other “sharpener,” and a tablespoon; unless you have a polished table, cover it with a neat breakfast-cloth, using napkins (“serviettes”) to match. If your table-top be at all presentable, lay a hemstitched or embroidered square of linen—sold as a “breakfast or luncheon square”—in the center, and under each plate a doily of the same style. A thick mat to protect the varnish against the heated meat dish; a carafe, or glass pitcher, of ice-water on each side of the table, and the tea and coffee equipage at the head, complete the preparations for serving.

The basket, or dish of fruit, is handed from the sideboard where are arranged tablespoons, the glass or silver tub of broken ice to replenish glasses, and, if there are no carafes on the table, a pitcher of iced water, with a relay of knives and forks in case an extra supply should be required on account of accidents.

At the last minute, before the mistress is told at the sitting-room door that “breakfast is on,” the glasses are filled with iced water, a firm ball of butter and a freshly-cut slice of bread are laid upon the small plate at the left of each place.

When the family and guests are seated, the waitress, dressed in a neat gingham or print gown, a clean apron, with bretelles, bib and full skirt, and a white cap pinned above orderly hair (not used to cloak unkempt elf-locks), passes the fruit basket or dish to the mistress of the house from the left side; then to each person at table.

The fruit eaten, let the waitress, beginning as before, at the head of the table, take from the right side of each person, plate, knife and spoon in one hand, finger-bowl in the other, and remove to a side table, or to the “waitress’s pantry,” where they are to be washed. Never pile plates and saucers upon one another, or upon a tray. The habit is slovenly and lazy. Still more displeasing is the scraping of plates at the side table, or within hearing of the eaters.

If the cereal be cooked, it is usually served by the mistress of the house. In this case set the hot dish upon a mat beside or before her, when you have put a cereal saucer with a plate under it before each person. Have a tray, with a napkin or doily within it, ready to receive each saucer as it is filled; offer to the eaters from the left, and when all are served pass sugar and cream on the tray.

When the cereal has been discussed, remove first the dish, then the saucers, and bring in hot plates, quickly and dexterously setting one before each person. They should have been warmed through slowly in the kitchen, but not be so hot as to draw the varnish through the doilies. Next set the dish of hot meat, chicken or fish, in front of the carver. As each portion is laid upon a plate, the plate is set upon the tray you hold. Taking the plate in your hand when you reach the mistress of the house, set it down before her from the right.

There need be no confusion in this much-debated question of “left and right” if the waitress will bear in mind one simple rule:

When plate, cup or other article is to be taken from the tray by the eater, or he is to help himself from an offered dish, the waitress must stand on his left, that he may use his right hand freely. What the waitress puts upon the table with her own hand must be done from the right.

For example, the plate with meat on it is set down from the right of the person who is thus served. He takes his cup of coffee and helps himself to sugar and cream from the left.

Before the waitress leaves the breakfast-room for the pantry, if she does not remain throughout the meal, let her replenish glasses with water and ice, pass bread or muffins a second time, and if cups are emptied, offer her tray to take them back to the head of the table to be refilled. Should she begin to wash plates and saucers in the adjoining pantry to save time, let this be done very quietly. The rattle of china is not a musical accompaniment to table-talk.

The manner of setting the table and waiting at luncheon is substantially the same as at breakfast. Dinner demands certain variations, while the general principles are the same.

The waitress of to-day has a dinner uniform, decorous in all, becoming to a large majority of women. She wears a black gown, deep white cuffs and collar, and an apron of finer material and somewhat more ornate in fashion than in the forenoon.

Under the damask table-cloth is laid a covering of felt made for this purpose—sold as “table-felt,” or a “silence-cloth.” The linen cover lies more smoothly over this and appears to be of better texture than when spread upon bare boards. Besides the damask table-cloth, a “carving square” is laid at the foot of the table, and under it a thick mat on which the hot dish may stand. On this are carving-knife, fork and “steel;” also tablespoon and gravy ladle, leaving room between for the large dish. A cold plate stands at each place, to be taken up when the hot is set down by the waitress. At the right of the plate lie the soup-spoon, bowl uppermost, two knives, edges turned toward the plate, and a fish-knife (if there is to be fish) beyond the dinner-knives. A tumbler for water, and, if wine is used, glasses for this, stand also on the right, a little beyond the array of knives.

Some prefer to lay the soup-spoon at right angles to the knives, and back of where the plate is to be.

At the left of the plate have two large forks; then one for fish, and outside of this an oyster-fork, if there are to be raw oysters. The napkin, folded flat, and inclosing a slice of bread, cut thicker and narrower than for breakfast, lies also on the left.

Plates for the several courses are in array on the sideboard, except such as must be brought hot from the kitchen. Salad plates and those for dessert stand in order. Saucers for ices are set upon plates lined with doilies. Fruit plates are also supplied with doilies, on which are finger-bowls half-full of water.

A side table is reserved for vegetable dishes. They are not placed upon the principal table now, even at the daily family dinner. Pickles and olives are on the dinner-table; carafes of water, and always flowers.

Some housewives have soup served in hot plates directly from the kitchen. If the tureen be used instead, the mistress preferring to pour it out herself, have a carving-cloth at that end of the table also. The soup ladle lies at her right. As she ladles out the soup it is set on the waitress’s tray. She takes it off with her hand and puts it from the right before any guest who may be present; then the family in turn. At a dinner party, those on the right of the hostess are served first. The soup-plate is set upon the cold plate in front of the eater, and when removed is taken from the right, leaving the lower stationary cold plate in its place, until the fish comes, when it is exchanged for a hot one.

In clearing the table after each course the soup-tureen, and in its turn the large dish at the foot of the table go out first, the soiled plates afterward.

Before the dessert is brought in, crumb the table, using a clean folded napkin, when you have cleared the cloth of salt, pepper, pickles, etc.

After the sweets comes the coffee. This is often sent to the guests into the drawing-room. In this case, the waitress covers a large tray with a white napkin, arranges the filled cups, smoking hot, upon it, sets the sugar in the middle and takes the whole into the room where the party is assembled.

Liqueur-glasses follow the coffee, and are also carried into drawing-room or library. In announcing to the mistress, in sitting-room or elsewhere, that a meal is ready, the waitress says, “Breakfast is on,” or “Luncheon is ready,” or “Dinner is served”—according to modern usage. One frightened unfortunate, on duty at a trial-dinner party, filled the hostess with confusion, the guests with secret amusement, by rattling off all three formulas in a breath.

It is impossible to write out rules that will meet every form and exigency of “entertaining.” The hostess who, having mastered the leading principles here given, trains her waitress into the daily practice of them, insisting that her family shall be served three times a day in the right order, and as punctiliously as if a state banquet were the business of the hour, need fear no embarrassing “situations,” no matter how large the number, nor how important the stations of her guests.

AMONG THE LINENS

Everything commonly classed under this head should be carefully aired before it is put away. Even when this duty has been conscientiously performed, real linen, made of pure flax, has marvelous properties for absorbing humidity. And humidity is the parent of that relentless foe to housewifely peace—mildew. Table-cloths, napkins and linen sheets that have been packed securely—as the owner supposed—in closets, drawers and chests, sometimes present to our horrified eyes a collection of small blotches, like dark freckles, and as ineradicable, and the folds, when opened, smell musty. The walls of the closet were not quite dry, or the chest has stood in a damp room, or the sideboard drawers have gathered must in an unaired basement dining-room.

It is a matter of common prudence to overhaul the contents of linen closets, and especially linen drawers and chests, once a month, if only to make sure that the contents are keeping well. At the same time be on the lookout for rents, broken threads and thin places.

Never buy cheap linen. If you can not afford the finest, you may secure that which is “all linen,” round-threaded and evenly woven. A little practice in the purchase of these treasures will initiate you into the art of judicious choosing. Having bought good “material,” take care of it. A break in a table-cloth or napkin, or towel, if neatly darned, will give you several more weeks of wear out of it—perhaps months. Hemstitched articles are liable to “give” first in the drawn work, and a stitch here in time, saves ninety.

You may keep napery in drawers, if more convenient than elsewhere, or upon shelves in a roomy sideboard. When at all practicable have a light, airy closet for bed linen. My own linen-room, built to order, has a southern window, unshuttered, through which the sun streams all the afternoon on fine days. Except in wet weather this window stands open for an hour of every day—not longer, lest dust should blow in.

Suffer another personal paragraph:—Not a sheet, towel or pillow-case is taken from this closet except by myself. Each pile has place and meaning. Each set of towels belongs to an especial apartment. Heavy bath towels; soft damask for the leastest baby’s use; big, rough huckaback for the boys’ lake baths, and the orderly heaps of different styles and textures, every one marked with embroidered letter or monogram designating chamber or owner—are known familiarly to but one person in the family.

I modestly commend this rule to each housemother. Let the linen shelves be the especial charge of some one particular keeper. If not yourself, one of your daughters. This is rendered almost necessary by the system of rotation that should regulate the use of sheets, pillow-cases, counterpanes and towels. Those which come from the wash this week should be kept by themselves. In laying out clothes for the beds, and towels for the various rooms, select from the bottom of the pile of those laundered one, two or four weeks ago, working gradually upward, week by week, until all have gone through the wash and consequently, all are evenly worn. Never make up a bed with freshly washed linen, no matter how well aired it may seem to be.

Sheets, pillow-cases, towels, table-cloths—all folded linens—should be laid upon the shelves with the open and hemmed ends toward the wall, the round folds outward. The effect is neater to the eye, and articles are more easily taken out.

There should be no smell in this airy closet except the indescribable sweet sense of freshly laundered linen—not strong enough to be called an odor. Lavender, scented grasses, and dried rose leaves are poetical in the writing and the hearing thereof, but the sleeper between smooth cotton or linen sheets sickens of artificial smells. They are neither “goodly,” nor wholesome.

THE CHILDREN

Our forefathers and foremothers were dressed, in infancy, precisely like their fathers and mothers. As we see by the portraits treasured among our curios, they were abridged copies of the adults of a hundred years ago. Parents were then consistent in feeding their progeny with food they considered convenient for themselves.

When the royal father ate fermenty for breakfast it is upon record that a baby prince, suffering from marasmus, was nourished (!) upon barley, boiled soft with raisins. They sat up to late functions—those wretchedly dissipated princelings—and the cotter’s children went to bed at the same time with himself.

He who doubts whether or not our times are better than the former would be converted to steadfastness of conviction by patient study of the nursery habits of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

We have children’s outfitters nowadays, who fashion garments utterly unlike those worn by be-corseted, be-trained, and be-pantalooned grown people. The cotter’s wife clothes her boys in knickerbockers and blouses, her girls in loose waists and brief skirts, all designed expressly—although she does not know it—to allow free and healthful growth of the immature creatures.

I wish I could add that reform as radical and commonsensible had been wrought in children’s diet, and children’s hours of rest and sleep.

Mothers who have thought deeply upon these matters and acted upon meditation, appreciate the hygienic law that children require sleep to promote growth, as well as to repair the waste of waking—which are working—hours. If an adult needs seven hours’ slumber, the infant of days—under seven years of age—requires ten to satisfy wants his senior has outgrown. Up to the age when the child ceases to add inches, if not cubits, to his stature yearly, provision must be made for the steady drain upon vital and nerve forces.

The aforesaid canny mothers call in the little ones from play before sundown in summer, bathe them, endue them in nightgowns and pajamas, put dressing-gowns over these, and loose slippers upon the tired feet, then set them down to a supper of bread and milk, or buttered bread with a dash of jam or jelly, and good, sweet milk, with once in a while a plain cooky as an afterthought. Supper over and prayers said, the darlings are laid in bed by the time the west begins to blush at the sun’s nearer approach. In winter, the six o’clock supper is served in the nursery or dining-room, and the bairnies disposed of comfortably to themselves and to the rest of the household before “grown-uppers” sit down to the “hearty” supper or dinner dividing the working day from an evening as busy, and sometimes almost as long.

To borrow from the slang dictionary—the child needs the ten or twelve hours’ sleep in his business of growing tall and robust, steady of nerve and sane of mind. Furthermore, he needs food adapted to his needs. Plenty of cereals; plenty of milk; plenty of ripe fruit in the season thereof; meat once a day; nourishing broths and a few green vegetables. No fried things whatsoever; neither tea nor coffee. No pastry; no mince pie nor plum pudding, nor highly seasoned entrées. Time enough for these delicacies when the inches (and feet) are all in, the muscles in splendid working order, the gray matter of the brain “all there,” and ready to do the duties of a man’s brain for fifty years to come.

One branch of a child’s education, sorely neglected in tens of thousands of homes, is mastication. As soon as he cuts his teeth teach him why they were given him. Make him chew everything he takes into his mouth. Able dieticians are proclaiming boldly that milk should be chewed, a mouthful at a time, if one would not have it change to curd about the diaphragm. The child’s meat should be finely minced for him until he can cut it up for himself, and bolting be reckoned as a breach of decent behavior. He may forget the truism that “gentlemen eat slowly” after he joins in the great American rush for fortune. Obedience to it for a term of years will lay the foundation of sound digestion. He will have a better chance of long life and no dyspepsia, than if he had been allowed to gulp down milk by the glassful without drawing breath, and to gobble steaks and chops in two-inch chunks.

Insist that the child shall behave decorously at the table, as well as eat properly, from the time he can comprehend an order conveyed in the simplest language. Do not let him make porridge of his soup by crumbing bread into it, or churn crackers into mush in his milk, or dip toast into his cocoa, or work vegetables and gravy into a mound, using the knife as a trowel. He should be reproved for sipping soup and other liquids audibly, and for loud inspirations after drinking. Line upon line and precept upon precept, gently but regularly enforced, will make a well-bred boy of him. And right habits learned in childhood last a lifetime.

There is common sense in each of the conventions at which vulgarians scoff.

DIET AND DIGESTION

The second depends upon the first. The two make up a whole which is Health.

“Food values” is so emphatically a technical term that I would not employ it here if it did not express just what I mean, when used untechnically.

What we eat has many and differing values. It is possible, without degenerating into dietetic cranks, to appraise them properly and to apply the knowledge thus gained to the building up of these bodies of ours and the consequent up-building of the immortal better part they encase.

Digestions are so many and so diverse, the one from the other, that it is rank folly to prescribe bills-of-fare warranted to agree with everybody.

Take, for example, milk. It has won from the ablest writers on dietetics the title of the One Perfect Food for the human race. Specialists on dyspepsia prescribe an almost exclusive milk diet for obstinate cases. In typhoid fevers it is the specific regimen. One man consumes inordinate quantities, by advice, to increase adipose tissue. A woman lives upon skim milk, swallowed very slowly, to reduce her flesh. And so on through multifarious cases—all acting upon the recommendation of experts.

All the time, as each of us knows, certain stomachs can not digest milk, or even retain it long enough to test its nutritive properties, while in others it causes intense heartburn and engenders bile.

Toast and tea are the stock invalid diet, the civilized world over. Yet Medical Daniels (M. D.’s) are rising up by the score to protest against ruining stomachs with tannic acid and burdening digestive organs by forcing what is no better than dry sawdust upon them.

Chocolate is freely prescribed as digestible, and so nutritious that one could live and not lose flesh, eating nothing else, for weeks together.

I am acquainted personally with ten people at least, to whom any form of chocolate is poisonous and abhorrent to every sense.

Natives of the land where the cocoa palm grows virtually subsist upon the nuts, and many in other lands devour the imported cocoanut with impunity. The fatty flesh acts upon some stomachs with the virulence of glass filings, producing terrible cramps and even convulsions.

A noted teacher of culinary lore strenuously recommends our native nuts, walnuts, filberts, hazelnuts, chestnuts, and so forth, raw, and cooked in various ways as a substitute for meat. The innovation is daring, and opposed to the conclusion based upon the observation and experience of scores of other writers, to the effect that nuts are hurtful to six people out of ten, the oils, and the cells which contain the oils, difficult of digestion by any save the strongest stomach.

It is much the fashion with writers upon domestic economy to extol fish as more economical and more easily digested than flesh, besides being rich in the phosphates needed to repair the waste of brain force.

Some people who would scout the imputation of invalidism can not eat even fresh fish without experiencing symptoms not unlike ptomaine poisoning. I recall the case of one woman who was extremely fond of oysters, yet dared not touch them for fear of fatal consequences. I once saw her faint away an hour after she had eaten half a dozen.

Who shall decide when dietists and individual digestions disagree so radically as is indicated by these and hundreds of other examples? And by what standard of gastronomic morality shall we gage personal conduct in the government of appetite? Since man must eat to live, and an unimpaired digestion is wealth inestimable—what shall we eat?

Certain combinations of materials are manifestly iniquitous. Cooked fats, fried fats in particular; soggy bread, especially when fresh from the oven; hot cakes, (“sinkers”), viscid with griddle grease and swimming in butter; tough doughnuts, reeking with lard; leathery pie-crust; underdone fish and rare pork and veal; cabbage that has been cooked in but one water; turnips that have been left in the ground until they are stringy pith; tough meats of all kinds that resist mastication; unripe fruits—none of these should ever enter human mouths, or be imposed upon the long-suffering digestive apparatus.

The housemother who studies wisely the properties of the fare she puts before her family will adjust food-values to the several needs of those to whom she ministers. The child of weak intestines must have neither oatmeal, hominy, nor mush for his breakfast cereal. Rice, rightly cooked, thickened milk, well boiled, and arrowroot porridge, will heal irritation, and, as it were, tighten the tension of the machine. He may not indulge in the apple-sauce and cracked wheat which are better than laxative drugs to his hale brother.

A bilious girl should not drink milk unqualified by a dash of lime water, and never take coffee. Her languid, appetiteless mother will be refreshed in nerve, stimulated in brain, by a demi-tasse of strong coffee taken without cream after her dinner. It is doubtful whether or not creamed coffee is a wholesome beverage for any one. It is an established fact that the addition of cream works a chemical change, and for the worse, in that which, taken clear, is a valuable digestive agent.

An important branch of the mother’s profession is to acquaint herself with the stomachic idiosyncrasies of each member of her household. Certain compounds and some simples do not agree with one person, while others thrive upon them. To be cognizant of the peculiarities of each constitution is to be forewarned of the danger of gastronomic experiments. Lay down as a positive law that it is wrong—a sin against the body given by God—to eat what one is sure will disagree with one. Tabulate for your own convenience a code of “kitchen physic.”

To wit, that Indian meal is laxative; oatmeal, heating; wheat-flour, binding; that tea is slightly astringent, and coffee, creamed, a gentle aperient; that sweets and rare beef engender gouty acid in those disposed to rheumatism and constitutional headache; that candies and other confectionery ferment into sharp acid in an empty stomach, and should, therefore, never be eaten unless as a dessert. The same is true of pickles. Except when eaten in combination with meats and other oily foods, they are actively unwholesome. The schoolgirl habit of champing pickled cucumbers and pickled limes, as a starving pauper might gnaw a crust, is pernicious and disgusting. The skins of raisins and grapes are indigestible. Figs are a well-known cathartic, a fact the housemother should avail herself of where a doctor, if summoned, would prescribe a drug. It is always better to control digestive irregularities by diet than by medicines, each of which is a poison which cures one ill by creating another.

Pears dispose one to constipation. Ripe peaches and ripe apples regulate the bowels in a vast majority of cases; an orange, eaten at bed time, is a gentler agent than Rochelle salts, and does as good work.

The veteran practitioner who insisted fifty years ago that “cupboard cures” were safer and surer than those wrought by materia medica was in advance of his age. The twentieth century is just growing up to his standard.

I have spoken of qualifying milk with lime water for bilious people. Other articles of food unwholesome to some constitutions may be modified with wholesomeness by the use of certain condiments which act as correctives to hurtful qualities.

For example, nuts may be eaten freely when salted. Thus treated they are introduced at dinner as digestive agents and appetizers. When accompanied by fruits, nut-oils are readily assimilated by the gastric juices. Hence, nuts and raisins go naturally together upon the menu.

Cayenne pepper makes oysters and fish a safe enjoyment for those with whom they disagree actively if this be not used, and lemon-juice further counteracts the evil effects of fish-oil and the dreaded ptomaine.

THE IMPROMPTU LARDER

Some of her friends call it “The Emergency Pantry.” The owner objects to the term because it conveys an idea of bandages and styptics. Whereas, the cozy closet devoted to the comfort of possible guests—to be welcomed and fed, although unexpected—contains substantial food and appetizing delicacies.

She belongs to the great and growing host of suburbanites dependent upon peripatetic butcher and baker, and the nearest “general store.” The keeper of the typical general store never orders so much as one jar of marmalade or a pound of fancy biscuits until the last is sold, and has never a twinge of mortification in saying: “Just out! Expect new lot next week.”

So our hospitable housewife stocks and keeps filled her reserve shelves.

John has a way of bringing home a chance guest to dinner when the notion strikes him, and Mrs. Notable’s town friends have their way of happening to be in dear Mary’s neighborhood about lunch time, and, having come all the way out from town, it is hardly worth while to go home when there are afternoon calls to be paid in the suburbs. When one of these calls chances to be upon Mrs. Notable, afternoon tea must be served. Mrs. Notable’s daughters join theater and concert parties, going early into the city and coming out late and hungry. Iced lemonade, ginger ale, cake and sandwiches refresh them and their attendants in summer, and on winter nights something hot and savory from “mother’s chafing dish.”

Back of all this stands mother’s Impromptu Larder. One shelf holds the best brand of canned soups, chicken, tongue and boned ham; another sardines, anchovies in oil, anchovy paste and pâté de foie gras, soused mackerel, and mackerel with tomato sauce. Baked beans, plain, and baked beans with tomato sauce, have honorable place among potted foods; also dainty jars of fancy cheeses, ready for use at a second’s notice, and bottles of grated Parmesan. Olives, including pimolas, stand in line with “pin-money pickles” and catsups. There is a brave array of homemade jellies, marmalades, brandied and pickled peaches; a case of imported ginger ale, bottles of domestic liqueurs, and glass cans of apple-sauce and tomatoes, put up in Mrs. Notable’s own kitchen. A fair proportion of each kind of pickle and preserve is set aside for the Impromptu Larder and not touched for family consumption.

Fancy biscuits of many sorts have several shelves for their own; sweet and unsweetened cheese biscuits, sea-foams and snowflakes and zwieback; hard crackers and soft crackers; plain wafers, fruit wafers and cream wafers; lady-fingers and ginger-snaps—make a goodly show to the eye and stay the mistress’s surprised soul when the impromptu luncheon or supper must be more sudden and abundant than usual.

“My strong tower!” she once called this pantry, laughingly.

In winter she finds room for nuts, raisins, apples and oranges; in autumn, for baskets of grapes. These last named may be called “transients,” the supply being renewed frequently.

Mrs. Notable is not a rich woman. She is obliged to make each dollar do the full work of one hundred cents. To this end she keeps an “expense book,” setting down every article purchased and the cost thereof.

In the account of necessary outlays that for replenishing the stores in the strong tower is registered under the head of “HOSPITALITY.”

FAMILIAR TALK

BREAKFAST

Common sense would decide that we should begin the day with the glad alertness with which the sun smiles at us over horizon, or housetops. He rejoices as a strong man ready—that is, rubbed down, supple and light—to run a race.

There are still writers of “goody” books and works on hygiene who extol the morning mood. According to them, the whole human machine is then at its best. The head is clear, the stomach is vigorous, the spirits are buoyant, life is a joy.

In reality—the reality of the every-day life of respectable people who have not tarried long at the wine, or eaten Welsh rarebits over night—the hard pull of the day is at the beginning.

The head of the average man or woman ought to be clear, the digestive organs active, limbs and joints in excellent working order. There should not be what one comedian describes as a “dark-brown, fuzzy taste” in the mouth, or the feeling that the cranium is stuffed with cotton wool, and the diaphragm should not loathe all manner of food.

But such things are. Where one man tells you that breakfast is the best meal of the day, fifty account the ceremony of the earliest meal of each new day as a hollow mockery. A celebrated judge left upon record the saying: “No man should be hanged for a murder committed before breakfast.” Another, almost as famous, openly and officially declared his unwillingness to condemn a prisoner convicted of manslaughter of whom his physician had testified that he was a chronic dyspeptic. “A dyspeptic,” urged the judge, whose own diet had consisted of mush and milk for ten years, “is never quite sane.”

Not one of his three daily meals is “comfortable” to him whose alimentary apparatus is out of order. To one in tolerable health the business of “stoking” the engine for the drive of the forenoon should not be irksome.

Thus common sense and hygienic general principles. Now for facts.

A brilliant woman summed up the popular judgment on the subject in an after-luncheon speech before other literary women, in the assertion that “the human machine needs to be wound up and lubricated and regulated by bath and breakfast before it is fit to work with other machines, or, indeed, to go at all. Breakfast, partaken of in the company of one’s nearest and dearest, is a blunder of modern civilization. It is an ordeal over which each should mourn apart.”

A young man of education and breeding, who lives in bachelor chambers with three other “good fellows,” confesses that, while the seven o’clock dinner hour is always full of cheer and good-will, the four friends seldom exchange a syllable at the breakfast table beyond a brief salutation at entering the room, and a curt “good day,” in separating to their various places of business.

“Thanks to this sensible silence, we have lived together three years without quarreling,” he wound up the story by saying. “Every man is a brute until he has had his morning coffee.”

Much of this is talk for talk’s sake, and some of it is Temper. It is not easy for one to get full command of oneself before the relaxed nerves are braced by tea or coffee, and the long-empty stomach is brought up to concert pitch by food. If we have slept too heavily, we are stupid; if too little, irritable.

I admit that the American’s first meal of the crude day, with the accompaniment of the rush for car, or boat, or train, that turns out—or in—dyspeptics by the hundred thousand yearly, is not conducive to domestic happiness, or the preservation of table etiquette. The householder, devouring porridge, two cups of scalding coffee, rolls, steak and fried potatoes, at discretion, with one eye on the clock, and both feet braced for the jump and run he knows are imminent if he would catch the train, is in the first or fortieth stage of what a witty essayist diagnoses as “Americanitis.” His children’s railroad speed of deglutition and the scurry for school are along the same lines of discomfort and disease.

Upon the mother’s hands and head rests the responsibility of “getting them off for the day,”—a battle renewed with each morning until she “fairly loathes the name and the thought of breakfast.”

The remedy for the domestic disgrace—for it is nothing if not that—is so simple that I have little hope it will be respected, much less accepted.

It is, get up fifteen minutes earlier in the morning!

The plain truth is that your system is not “ready for breakfast,” when you announce that you are. The racer, to whom Scripture compares the smiling God of Day, never takes the first lap at a rush. He warms gradually to his work, having at the outset paid as diligent heed to the “Make ready!” as to the “Go!”

If you rise usually at seven, have the hot water and cleaned boots brought to the door at a quarter before seven, and get up when you are called. A brisk bath and a smart rubbing with a crash towel, preceded by fifty gymnastic strokes, such as arm-swinging and general flexing of the muscles; twenty-five deep breaths that pump the morning air down to the bottomest well of your lungs and clear the respiratory passages of effete matter lodged there during the night—these, with a general disposition to speak charitably toward, and to speak civilly to companions and competitors in the race, correspond to “make ready.” Clean, supple, and in good heart, come to the table as to preliminary refreshment you have time and appetite to enjoy.

At least seven-tenths of the twaddle over the horrors of the family breakfast are affectation and indolence. Breakfasting in bed is an imported fashion, and to my notion, is not a clean practice. The tray brought to an unaired room, a tumbled bed and an unwashed body, looks well in French engravings, but is a solecism in an age of hygienic principles, much ventilation and matutinal baths. The inability to be in charity with one’s fellow mortals, to smile genially and to speak gently before the world is well started upon its diurnal swing, and the complainant’s physical system is toned and tuned and oiled by eating, is degrading in itself. The confession of it is puerile.

Force yourself to speak pleasantly if you can not at once bring your spirits up to the right level. Study to be a man, or a woman, although breakfastless. To be thrown in the first round of the day by the sluggish flesh and the devil of ill-humor, before the world has a chance to grapple with you, is cowardly and sinful.

One word of friendly counsel to my fellow brain-workers, who are also sister-women, may not be amiss in this connection:

Never write or study in the morning until you have broken your fast. A physiologist of note estimates that the draft on the nervous forces and the eyesight of working on an empty stomach is equivalent to the labor of lifting thirty pounds dead weight.

However this may be, stay that long-suffering organ with a few morsels—a slice of bread and butter, moistened by a cup of tea, if your rising is in advance of that of the rest of the household and you meditate an hour’s work before the family breakfast.

BREAKFAST FRUITS

The imported fashion of beginning breakfast with fresh fruit has become an American custom. The assuasive effect of the generous juices upon the coat of the stomach, usually clogged at early morning with a mucous deposit, is a wholesome preparation for digestive processes—a “toner” to just-awakened energies. To commit suddenly to the long-suffering stomach, as yet inert, and but dimly aware of what is expected of it, a “feed” of beefsteak, potatoes and hot breads, is always an unwelcome surprise. Sometimes the abused organ turns with the proverbial blind wrath of the patient, and revenges itself, if not speedily, surely and fiercely. It would fain be awakened kindly and gently. To this end, stay it with oranges, comfort it with apples and grapes.

Oranges

1. Cut in half, crosswise, and dig out the pulp with a silver or gold orange spoon.

2. They are yet nicer prepared beforehand by running a sharp knife on the inside, close to the rind, thus severing the membranes that divide the lobes. Take these membranes out carefully, leaving the pulp in the two cups of the halved orange. It can be then eaten as easily as a custard could be. Set on ice until you are ready to serve.

3. Peel the oranges; separate the lobes and cut each into three pieces. Serve in a chilled glass dish, passing powdered sugar for those who like it.

Breakfast fruits are far more wholesome when eaten without sugar.

Grapes

Keep them on ice for an hour before sending to table, even in winter, and scatter cracked ice over and among them. This has the double advantage of cooling and of cleansing them. Pass grape scissors with the dish of fruit.

Peaches, pears and apples

Wash and dry pears and apples with a soft cloth. Have a silver fruit knife at each plate, and let the eaters pare the fruit for themselves. Peaches should be left with the fur (and bloom) on.

Berries

These should never in any circumstances be sugared in the dish. Let each person sweeten his portion for himself, after which they should be eaten immediately, before the sugar has time to draw out the juice and thereby wither the berries.

Strawberries should be eaten at breakfast with the caps on. Choose the finest fruit for this meal, using the stem as a handle, and dipping the berry into powdered sugar, if not sweet enough to be eaten without.

Raspberries and blackberries

Never wash these, or strawberries, unless they are intolerably gritty. Water is ruin to flavor and integrity, where the more delicate berries are concerned. Set on ice for an hour or more before sending to table. Pass sugar for those who wish it, and in helping out each portion avoid bruising the berries. “Mashed” berries suffer an instant change in flavor. The air begins at once to act chemically upon the liberated juices.

Huckleberries and gooseberries

Wash, drain and leave on ice for two hours. Pass sugar with huckleberries for such as wish it. They are better without at breakfast. Gooseberries are always eaten without. The large English varieties are delicious and very healthful.

If cream be eaten with breakfast fruit, it should be as an after-course—or dessert. It loses character and effect as an assuasive and persuasive agent.

Melons

Cantelopes and nutmeg melons are prime favorites as an introductory step to the weightier business of the morning meal. They deserve their popularity.

Cut those of small and medium size in half; scrape out the seeds and put a lump of ice in each half. The larger may be divided into thirds, and a piece of ice laid upon each piece. Pass salt and pepper, also sugar with them. Many epicures prefer to eat them au naturel.

Stewed fruits

In the late winter or early spring-time, when apples are scarce and dear, and oranges have not yet come to their full plenteousness and flavor, the human system needs anti-bilious food. Our foremothers compounded a villainous preventive against spring “humors,” of sulphur and molasses, stirred together to a cream and administered before breakfast to each shuddering creature who had pains in the bones, headache and nausea at rising, and a general sensation of good-for-nothingness. “Advanced” matrons added cream of tartar to the villainous preventive, and gave their families to drink of cream-of-tartar lemonade. According to these wise and worthy women, “spring fever” was as inseparable from the opening season as robin song and pussy willow.

Even now, cooling medicines are advised by physicians and believed in by families. The careful student of hygiene, a science the prime principle of which is prevention, and not cure, shows us a more excellent way. The kindly fruits of the earth never merit their name more truly than when winter is going and spring-time is coming; when benevolent bile, balked in its rightful channels, becomes a baleful agency to be fought as an acknowledged foe. In fruit and in succulent vegetables we find our cooling medicines, “indicated” by the great physician, Nature. If fresh fruits be wanting, we must accept substitutes.

Stewed rhubarb

Wash, scrape and cut the stalks into inch lengths. Leave in cold water for an hour. Put over the fire in the inner vessel of a double boiler, set in cold water, bring to a boil and simmer gently until tender and clear. Keep the inner vessel closely covered that the steam may do its work. Remove from the fire, sweeten to taste—not heavily—turn into a bowl and cover until cold.

As a breakfast dish, this is refreshing and most wholesome. Cooked as above, you get the benefit of the anti-bilious juices, undiluted by water. Set on ice for an hour before eating. Some add a handful of sultana raisins to the raw rhubarb.

Prunes

Wash and soak for two hours. Drain, put over the fire with just enough cold water to cover them, and cook tender. Turn out and cover until cold. Put on the ice for an hour before sending to the table. No sugar should be added to prunes when they are to be eaten at breakfast time.

They are slightly laxative and anti-bilious.

* * * * *

The unfortunate few who can not begin breakfast with acid fruits “may, with pleasure and profit, conclude the meal with oranges, apples, grapes or melons.” One family I know of eats, the year around, fresh uncooked fruit as a last course to the breakfast that is invariably inforced with oranges, melons or grapes, each in its season.

And there is not a dyspeptic among them!

BREAKFAST CEREALS

Some dietetists, who are neither cranks nor simpletons, disbelieve in cereals of whatsoever sort as a first course at breakfast. They urge that to spread a hot poultice all over the lining of the stomach is to relax and weaken that organ; that it goes to sleep, as it were, and is too inert to dispose properly of the rest of the meal.

Others are strenuous in the belief that the act of chewing is necessary to the proper assimilation of even semi-solids, and since few people think of chewing porridge, the value of it as nutriment is doubtful.

There is force in the latter demur. Children should be taught to chew porridge of all kinds, also bread and milk. One zealous dietist insists that milk—“the one and only perfect food”—ought to be masticated. The motion of the jaws excites the salivary glands, he says, causing the flow of a secretion most favorable to digestion.

As to the “hot poultice,” there is a grain of reason in the objection. As I have explained in urging the propriety of beginning breakfast with fruit, the coat of the stomach is masked, after the sleep of the night, by a thin mucus, which interferes with the task of the digestive agencies. If fruit is not eaten, a draft of cold water, not iced, will do the work in part. A few swallows of really hot water are better still. A sip of tea or coffee—or, perhaps, best of all, vichy, apollinaris or other good mineral water, may precede the nourishing cereal.

That it is nourishing when the stomach gets hold of it, is undeniable. Oatmeal builds up bone, and muscle, and brain; Indian meal mush and hominy are gently laxative and cooling to the blood; preparations of wheat are less laxative, and therefore safer in hot weather, and for teething children, than oatmeal in any form. Rice boiled tender in milk is both palatable and wholesome. Each and all of these should be eaten with cream, and except as a dessert, never with sugar. Children who are trained to eat porridge and milk, or cream, without sugar, find the addition of this unpleasant. It certainly tends to acidity of the stomach.

Every cereal, with the exception of rice, that needs any cooking needs a great deal of it. Soaking over night is indispensable to the excellence of most of them. Four hours of boiling make oatmeal good; eight hours make it better; twenty-four hours make it “best.”

Oatmeal

Soak over night. Even the varieties which are advertised “to require no soaking, and but fifteen minutes’ cooking,” are improved by this process. Turn a deaf ear to the charmer who would persuade you to the contrary. “Steam cooked” is often a delusion and a snare. Put your oatmeal into the inner vessel of your farina kettle, cover deep in cold water, put on the lid and set at the back of the range at bedtime. In the morning add boiling water, salt to taste, and draw to the front, filling the outer kettle with hot water. Cook steadily for an hour and as much longer as you can. My own taste is for oatmeal boiled to a jelly. It is as far superior to the ordinary preparation of the cereal as creamed cauliflower is to Dutch cabbage.

Send to table and eat with cream.

Never throw away oatmeal “left-overs.” Cook again, and yet again, always in a double boiler.

Hominy

Soak all night; cover with boiling water, slightly salted, in the morning, and cook for an hour. A delicious preparation of hominy is effected by cooking it in plenty of salted water until tender, turning off the water and supplying its place with cold milk. Bring to a boil and serve.

Cracked wheat

Cook as you would oatmeal. An hour’s boiling suffices.

Milk porridge

Heat a pint of milk to boiling. Into a pint of cold milk stir four tablespoonfuls of flour, and when this is smooth stir it into the hot milk. Cook in a double boiler for an hour, add salt to taste, and serve with cream.

Meal-and-flour porridge

Mix together two tablespoonfuls of Indian meal and the same quantity of flour, wet them with cold water, and stir into a cup of boiling water. Cook in a double boiler for half an hour, stirring often. Add salt, and beat in slowly a pint of scalding milk, cook, stirring constantly for fifteen minutes longer. Serve with cream.

Brewis (as made by our grandmothers)

Dry bread in the oven and crush with the rolling-pin into crumbs. Heat two cups of slightly salted milk, and when it boils, stir in a cupful of the dried crumbs. Add a tablespoonful of butter, and cook, beating steadily for five minutes. Serve hot with cream, or an abundance of sweet milk.

Rice

Wash a cupful of rice in two waters, then drop it slowly into two quarts of salted boiling water. The water should be at a galloping boil. Do not stir the rice once during the twenty minutes in which it must cook steadily. At the end of that time test a grain to see if it is tender, and if it is, turn the rice into a colander; shake this hard that the air may reach all the kernels, and set in the open oven five minutes before dishing. Each grain should stand separate from the rest.

This is the South Carolinian way of cooking rice, and the one and only right way.

Indian meal mush

Moisten a cupful of corn-meal with enough cold water to make it into a paste. Stir this paste into a quart of salted, boiling water, and cook, beating it hard and often, for an hour at least. If the mush becomes too stiff, add from time to time more boiling water.

Farina

A good, inexpensive cereal, which seldom appears upon the breakfast table. Yet it should have honorable mention.

Soak overnight. In the morning, stir it into boiling water, slightly salted, and cook half an hour, stirring up well from the bottom.

Each patented breakfast cereal has its champion. It would be invidious to name any of them here. Nearly all are founded upon wheat, corn, rye, barley or rice. Each is accompanied by full directions for the preparations of the same for the table.

Oatmeal, rice, mush, farina—any of the cereals that must be cooked before they are eaten—are delicious and nutritious when committed to the “hay-store” of which we are hearing so much.

The soaked cereal is cooked for five minutes after the boil begins, and the bubbling pot, closely covered, is set immediately in a nest made by hollowing out the hay with which a box is packed. The hay is pressed closely all around the pot, an old quilt is spread over all and the whole left untouched for five, six or ten hours. The cereal will be hot when served, and tender beyond compare.

BREAKFAST BREADS

Beginning with the most important and difficult form of bread-making, I offer three methods of preparing and baking the wholesome home-made loaf, fondly recollected by those whose early lives were spent in regions where bakers’ sawdusty cubes and parallelograms were not delivered at the back door in lieu of the genuine staff of life.

Potato sponge bread (No. 1)

Boil and mash, while hot, four potatoes of fair size, beating into them a tablespoonful, each, of cottolene or other fat and of white sugar. Beat smooth, adding, gradually, one and one-half pints of lukewarm water. Strain through a colander upon a pint of sifted flour. When you have a lumpless batter, add half a cake of compressed yeast, dissolved in four tablespoonfuls of warm water.

This is your sponge. Set in a moderately warm place in a bread-bowl with a perforated cover. If you have not this cover, throw a double fold of mosquito net or cheese-cloth over the bowl.

In four hours in summer, and six in winter, the sponge should be light and the top broken by air bubbles. Have ready in another deep bowl or tray five pints of dried flour of the best quality, sifted with a tablespoonful of salt. Hollow a space in the middle and work the sponge gradually into the flour with a clean, cool, bare hand, well floured to hinder the dough from sticking to it.

The dough should be just stiff enough to handle. When you can lift it to the kneading-board without spilling, it is ready. Rinse the bowl out with a little warm water and work into the dough in order to get all the sponge. Flour the board and knead the ball of dough, always working from the outside of the ball toward the middle. After ten minutes’ hard work, turning the dough over and over and around and around, the dough should be so elastic that if you deal it a smart blow with your fist the indentation will fill up again instantly.

Return to the mixing bowl, cover and leave as before, out of drafts in a steady temperature. When it has risen to double the original bulk—in four or six hours—return to the board and knead again, quickly and vigorously, for eight or ten minutes. Make into loaves and set to rise in pans, filling each half-full. Cover with a cloth, let all rise for an hour, or until the pans are two-thirds full, and bake.

Have a steady fire, with coal enough to last until the baking is over. See that the ovens are “just right” by holding your naked arm in one. If you can hold it there comfortably for one whole minute and not more, you may put in the bread. Or try the oven with a little flour put upon a tin plate and set well back in the closed oven. It should be delicately touched with brown in five minutes if the oven be right.

In ten minutes open the oven door very cautiously, and if you see the pans filled to the top, cover with light-brown “grocer’s paper” to prevent the crust from hardening before the heart of the loaf is done. Ten minutes before the hour for baking is up remove the papers and let the top crust brown.

Turn out the loaves carefully upon a cloth, propping them against a pan or other clean object, that they may not get sodden in cooling. Do not put into the bread-box until they are entirely cold. The box should have a cloth in the bottom, and another thrown over the bread before the box is closed.

Bread with plain sponge (No. 2)

Chop a tablespoonful of cottolene or other fat, or butter, into a quart of flour; wet with a quart of warm water; add a tablespoonful of sugar, and half a yeast-cake dissolved in warm water. Beat all together hard for ten minutes, as you would cake batter. Cover, and set aside to rise as with potato sponge. In the morning work into two quarts of salted flour and proceed as directed in last recipe.

Milk bread (No. 1)

Sift two quarts of flour with a tablespoonful of sugar and an even teaspoonful of salt. Have ready a pint of boiling water into which you have stirred an even tablespoonful of butter. Add, while the water is boiling, two cups of milk, and take from the fire at once. When a little more than blood-warm, stir into the milk-and-water half a cake of compressed yeast, dissolved in half a cupful of warm water. Make a hole in the sifted flour, pour in the mixture and work quickly with a wooden spoon to a soft dough. Flour your hands, make the dough into a manageable ball and knead hard and steadily for ten minutes. Let the dough rise to double the original bulk in your covered bread-bowl, make into loaves when you have kneaded it for five minutes, and proceed as already directed.

Milk bread (No. 2)

Sift two quarts of flour into a large bowl and stir into it a teaspoonful, each, of salt and sugar. Into this flour stir a pint of warm milk, to which has been added a scant tablespoonful of melted butter, a pint of warm water, and half a yeast cake dissolved in a gill of blood-warm water. Work to a dough; turn upon a floured pastry-board and knead for fifteen minutes. Put the dough in the bread-raiser and set to rise over night. Early in the morning divide into loaves, knead each for five minutes, put the loaves into greased pans and set in a warm place to rise for an hour before baking in a steady oven. Cover the bread for the first half-hour it is in the oven. It should be baked in an hour.

Whole wheat bread (No. 1)

Dissolve a cake of yeast in half a cupful of warm water. Pour two cups of boiling water upon two cups of milk, and stir into them a teaspoonful, each, of salt and sugar. When they are about blood-warm add the yeast. Into this stir a quart of whole wheat flour. Of course, flour varies in its thickening powers, but there should be enough to make a good batter. Beat hard for five minutes, then stir in more flour until you have a dough that is as soft as it can be handled. Knead for ten minutes on a floured board and set to rise for three hours. Knead again for five minutes; make into loaves and let these rise. When light, bake. If the loaves are small they will bake in three-quarters of an hour.

Whole wheat bread (No. 2)

One tablespoonful of cottolene or other fat and the same of sugar. One cup, each, of boiling water and of hot (not boiling) milk. One yeast-cake dissolved in half a cup of warm water. One cup of white flour and three cups of whole wheat flour, or enough to make a soft dough. Knead for ten minutes; cover and let it rise until it is twice its original bulk. Make into small loaves; let it rise for an hour, or until very puffy, and bake.

Graham bread (No. 1)

Set a sponge over night, as for white bread, and in the morning work into it a cup of salted whole wheat flour, three cups of graham flour and three tablespoonfuls of molasses. Knead long and hard, and set to rise. When very light make into loaves and set in a warm place for an hour longer. Bake in an even oven. The loaves should be covered with thick wrapping-paper during the first half-hour they are in the oven, then allowed to brown. This bread is especially nice when made with a potato sponge, keeping fresh and sweet much longer than when the plain sponge is used.

Graham bread (No. 2)

Make a sponge as for white bread, over night, and in the morning add to it three scant tablespoonfuls of molasses and enough graham flour to make a soft dough. Knead thoroughly, and after forming into loaves and putting these into well-greased pans, set them to rise. When risen, bake in a tolerably hot oven.

Old-fashioned rye bread

Dissolve half a cake of yeast in a quarter-cup of lukewarm milk, with a small teaspoonful of white sugar. Pour this into a wooden bowl, add a pint of lukewarm water, a heaping teaspoonful, each, of salt and caraway seed, and a pint of rye flour. Stir well with a wooden spoon and set to rise in a warm place for two hours. When sufficiently risen it will be full of bubbles. Add then flour enough to make a very stiff dough. Beat this for at least ten minutes and set to rise for two hours more. Knead on a floured board, let it rise in the pan again until it begins to crack. Dip your hand in cold water, wet the loaf and put it into the oven. It must bake one hour. Do not open the door for ten minutes after it goes in. The oven should be very hot at first, and as soon as the bread is browned it should be covered with stout paper.

If you like, you may omit the caraway seeds. Some people dislike them exceedingly. Others would not relish rye bread “all of ye olden time” without them.

Rye and Indian bread

Make a soft sponge of potatoes, or a plain sponge. (See Bread No. 2.) When light, sift together two cupfuls of rye flour with one of Indian meal, a teaspoonful of salt, an even teaspoonful of soda. Make a hole in the middle, pour in the sponge, and when the ingredients are thoroughly incorporated beat in half a cupful of molasses. Should the molasses thin the dough into a batter, add rye flour. Knead until it is as light as a rubber ball, set aside in a covered bread-bowl and let it rise six hours. Work ten minutes more, make into loaves, and when they are well up in the world bake in a slow oven. The loaves will require three hours to bake properly. Cover with paper for the first two hours.

The dear old grandaunt from whom I got this ancient and honorable recipe had baked her “rye and Indian” for fifty years in the brick oven of a homestead two hundred years old. She covered her loaves with leaves from an oak near the door. The oak overshadowed a well dug in 1640.

Steamed Boston brown bread

Mix thoroughly a cup, each, of graham flour, wheat flour and corn-meal, and stir in a teaspoonful of salt. Warm together a cup of milk, in which is dissolved a small teaspoonful of baking soda, and a teacupful of molasses. Pour over the mixed flours and meal a cupful of boiling water, and then add the warmed milk and molasses. Beat hard and long, and turn into a greased pudding-mold with a closely-fitting top. Cook in an outer vessel of boiling water for three hours. Remove from the water, take the cover from the mold and set in the oven for ten or fifteen minutes, or until the bread is dry about the edges. Turn out, wrap in a napkin, and send to the table.

“Salt-rising” bread (No. 1)

(An old Virginia recipe)

Dissolve a half-teaspoonful of salt in two cups of scalding water, and beat in gradually enough flour to make a very soft dough. Beat for ten minutes, cover and set in a very warm place for eight hours. Now stir a teaspoonful of salt into a pint of lukewarm milk and add enough flour to make a stiff batter before working it into the risen dough. Mix thoroughly, cover, and set again in a warm place to rise until very light. Turn into a wooden bowl and knead in enough flour to make the batter of the consistency of ordinary bread dough. Make into loaves and set these to rise, and, when light, bake.

“Salt-rising” bread (No. 2)

(Contributed)

Put a quart of warm water,—not scalding hot, but at blood-heat,—into a pitcher, deep and of narrow mouth. Beat into it one teaspoonful of sugar, one-half teaspoonful of salt, a lump of soda not larger than a pea and (not necessarily, but preferably) a tablespoonful of corn-meal, with enough flour to make a rather thick, but not really stiff, batter. Set your pitcher, well covered, into a stone jar or other deep vessel, and surround it with blood-warm water, setting it where such temperature will be quite evenly maintained. Never allow it to reach scalding heat. In two and a half hours, or, at the very most, three and a half, you will have foaming yeast. Now take a pan of flour, make a hole in the center, pour in the foaming yeast with as much water, gradually mixed with the yeast and flour, as will make the number of loaves desired. Do not make the dough very stiff. It should quake visibly when the pan is shaken. Cover well with dry flour and clean cloths, set in a warm place (temperature 80 degrees or 100 degrees Fahrenheit, or thereabouts), and, as soon as light, knead into loaves, which will soon rise enough for baking. Do not delay baking after the last rising, or your bread may have a slightly sour taste. Bake thoroughly, and no better or more wholesome fermented bread could be asked for.

Sweet potato bread

Dissolve one cake of compressed yeast in one-fourth cup of lukewarm water, add one cup of scalded milk (blood-warm), one tablespoonful of salt, one-half cup of sugar and one full cup of sweet potato, roasted, scraped from the skins, worked to a cream with three tablespoonfuls of melted butter, then allowed to cool. Beat all together until light, and stir in with a wooden spoon flour to make a soft dough. Throw a cloth over the bread-bowl and set in a warm place until well risen. Make into small loaves; let them rise for an hour, and bake in a brisk oven.

This is also a Virginia recipe. You may substitute Irish for sweet potatoes if you like.

Buttermilk bread

Into a chopping-bowl put a quart of flour which has been sifted three times with half a teaspoonful of baking powder, the same quantity of baking soda, and a quarter of a teaspoonful of salt. Chop into this flour a heaping tablespoonful of butter until the shortening is thoroughly incorporated. Work in gradually a pint of buttermilk—or enough to make a soft bread dough. Turn into a greased bread tin and bake in a steady oven for an hour. Cover with paper for the first half-hour, that the bread may have an opportunity to rise before the crust forms. Turn out and send to the table while very hot. Cut with a sharp knife into slices, which must be generously buttered. While perhaps this bread is not to be recommended to people who suffer from weak digestions, it will be liked by those whose gastric apparatus is in proper working order.

If you can not get buttermilk, loppered milk will do as well.

German coffee bread

Heat a cup of milk to scalding, but do not let it boil. Stir into it while hot two tablespoonfuls of cottolene (never lard), or butter, two tablespoonfuls of sugar and a little salt. Let it cool to blood-warmth, when add half a yeast-cake dissolved in one-quarter cup of blood-warm milk, and flour to make a stiff batter. Cover, and let rise until light. Add one-half cup of seeded raisins, cut into pieces. Spread one-half inch thick in a buttered dripping-pan; cover and let rise. Brush with melted butter, and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Bake in a moderate oven for half an hour. Cover for half of that time with thick paper.

Graham bread without yeast

To three and one-half cups of graham flour add two cups of sour milk, one cup of New Orleans molasses, a pinch of salt and one teaspoonful of soda dissolved in hot water. Bake in a slow oven one hour.

HOT BREAKFAST BREADS

Hot breads—comprising griddle-cakes, biscuits, muffins, Sally Lunns and crumpets—may not be wholesome for everybody. I seriously incline to the belief that they are not, especially in warm weather, and if partaken of too freely.

But the best types of these are good, and their appearance upon the board where John had looked for stale bread, or charred toast, is a means of breakfast grace not to be underrated by the wise housewife. She is a canny woman who runs down into the kitchen for ten or fifteen minutes on a stormy morning, or when the bread is especially dry, or John is “a wee bit blue,” and tosses up (always by rule and measure) ingredients that come out of a quick oven, puffy, hot, delicious, to gladden the boys’ hearts and give their father pleasanter food for consideration than business worries. If the men of any family were called upon for their opinion of what a dietetic crank, better versed in anatomy and chemistry than in courtesy, once anathematized at my breakfast table as “rank poison, madam! and nothing short of a sin!” they would say of his tabooed hot breads—“Naughty! but nice!”

One John—who hankers for the buckwheat cakes and sausage of his boyhood as the wanderers in the wilderness, their souls a-weary of manna, lusted for Egyptian flesh-pots—maintains, upon fairly tenable hygienic principles, that warm bread is made unwholesome because it is not masticated properly.

“We chew stale bread,” he says. “We bolt griddle-cakes and muffins because they are soft and easily swallowed. Give the salivary glands a chance to act upon them and they will not harm you.”

The prescription is easily tried.

Breakfast rolls (No. 1)

Sift a quart of flour with a half-teaspoonful of salt and a teaspoonful of sugar, rub into it a tablespoonful of butter, add a cup of warm milk and a third of a yeast-cake that has been dissolved in three tablespoonfuls of warm water, and knead this dough for twenty minutes. Set to rise for six or eight hours, make into rolls, put these into a greased baking-pan, and let them rise for half an hour longer before baking.

Breakfast rolls (No. 2)

Sift a quart of flour and stir into it a saltspoonful of salt, a teaspoonful of sugar, a cup of warm milk, two tablespoonfuls of melted cottolene or other fat, and two beaten eggs. Dissolve a quarter of a cake of compressed yeast in a little warm milk and beat in last of all. Set the dough in a bowl to rise until morning. Early in the morning make quickly and lightly into rolls, and set to rise near the range for twenty minutes. Bake for about an hour.

Parker house rolls

One cup of scalded milk (not boiled) left to cool until a little more than blood-warm, one-half yeast-cake dissolved in four tablespoonfuls of warm water, one tablespoonful of butter, three cups of flour, or a little less, one even tablespoonful of sugar, one-half teaspoonful of salt.

Melt the butter in the milk, add salt, sugar and yeast with rather less than half the flour. Make a sponge of these ingredients, beat hard for five minutes and set in a warm, sheltered place to rise.

It should be quite light in an hour and a half in winter, an hour in summer. Work in the rest of the flour until you have a soft dough. Knead three minutes and set to rise with a folded cloth over the bowl to exclude the air. When it has doubled its original bulk, turn out upon your kneading-board, and work quickly, but lightly, with fingers, not fists, for one minute. Roll with quick strokes and few into a thick sheet, rub over with melted butter (not hot). Roll up and knead one minute longer to incorporate the butter. Pull off bits of the dough three times as large as a walnut, and roll on the board into the desired shape. Arrange close together in the baking-pan. Cover and let them rise for half an hour, again doubling their size; then bake in a brisk, steady oven. Twenty minutes should suffice. When they have been in five minutes cover with whitey-brown grocer’s paper. Five minutes before the time is up take this off and brown.

Vienna rolls

Set a plain bread sponge at six o’clock in the evening. At bedtime make out a dough as directed for home-made bread. Cover in your mixing-bowl and set in a moderately warm place until six o’clock next morning. Make into round rolls as large as a small egg; set in a floured baking-pan so far apart that they will not touch as they rise; cover and leave for an hour. Just before they go into the oven cut half through the middle of each with a floured, sharp knife. Bake in a moderate oven to form a good crust. Cover at the end of ten minutes with paper. Remove this fifteen minutes later and brown.

Raised apple biscuits

(An old Virginia recipe)

One cup of scalded milk left to become blood-warm; one tablespoonful of butter melted in the milk; one tablespoonful of sugar; one-half teaspoonful of salt; one-half teaspoonful of baking-soda; one-half cake compressed yeast, dissolved in warm water; one cupful of grated apple; enough flour for making soft dough.

Mix the sugar with the butter and milk, and add the yeast. Sift salt twice with a cupful of flour. Make a hole in the middle and pour in the liquid. Beat into a batter and let it rise four hours. When light, sift the soda twice with another cupful of flour; grate the just-pared apple into the batter and beat in before it can change color. Finally, work in the sifted flour and soda. Let it rise for an hour, make into round, flat cakes with your hand; set close together in a pan, and when very light bake in a moderate oven. They are very good split open while hot, and buttered and sugared.

Sally Lunn

Sift together a pint of flour, a half-teaspoonful of salt and the same of powdered sugar.

In a large bowl beat stiff two eggs, pour on them a half-cup of warm milk, three tablespoonfuls of butter, melted, and a quarter of a tablespoonful of baking soda dissolved in a tablespoonful of hot water. Now slowly beat in the sifted flour and a quarter of a yeast-cake dissolved in half a cup of warm water. Whip to a smooth batter, and turn into a large greased mold to rise. In the morning set the mold in a steady oven and bake for half an hour, or until a straw pierced through the center of the loaf comes out clean. Turn out and serve at once.

Dried rusk

(An old Dutch family recipe)

Mix together a pint of milk, four tablespoonfuls of melted butter, a teaspoonful of salt and a half-cake of yeast dissolved in a half-cup of lukewarm water. Add enough flour to make a thick batter, beat it in well, cover the bowl containing this, and set in a warm place for two hours. Now work in the beaten eggs, and, when these are incorporated, add enough flour to make a dough that can easily be rolled out. Set to rise for two hours longer, then turn upon a floured board, roll out and cut into round biscuits. Lay in a baking-pan and set these near the range to rise for half an hour. Bake, and when done leave in the open oven to dry out. See that the fire is so low that the rusk will dry, not brown or burn. If you can spare the oven so long leave the rusk in it for six or eight hours; then set in a dry closet for several days before using. When you wish to use them lay in a deep bowl, pour iced milk upon them and let them soak until soft. Serve very cold with butter.

They are delicious for summer-morning breakfasts.

Caraway biscuits

(Contributed)

Sift together three pints of flour, one teaspoonful of salt and one and one-half teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Rub into this four tablespoonfuls of shortening. Add two tablespoonfuls of caraway seed, two eggs, well beaten, and one pint of milk. Mix this into a smooth, firm dough. Knead quickly; roll out to about a quarter of an inch in thickness and cut with a large biscuit-cutter. Prick with a fork, lay on greased baking tins and bake in a hot oven fifteen minutes.

Egg biscuits

(Contributed)

Sift together a quart of flour and two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Rub into this a piece of butter the size of an egg. Add two well-beaten eggs, one teaspoonful of sugar and one teaspoonful of salt. Mix together quickly with one cup of milk or more if needed. Roll to one-half inch thickness, cut into biscuits and bake at once in a quick oven twenty minutes.

French rolls

(Contributed)

To three cupfuls of sweet milk add a cup of shortening and one-half cake of compressed yeast and one teaspoonful of salt. Add flour enough to make a stiff dough. Let this rise over night. In the morning add two well-beaten eggs; knead thoroughly and let rise again. Make into balls about as large as an egg and then roll between the hands. Place close together on well buttered pans. Cover, let rise again, then bake in a quick oven to a delicate brown.

Fruit rolls

(Contributed)

Sift two cupfuls of flour, two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder, one-half teaspoonful of salt thoroughly together and mix with two-thirds cup of milk. Roll to a quarter of an inch thickness. Brush over with two tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Mix together one-third cupful of stoned raisins, chopped fine, two teaspoonfuls of citron, chopped fine, two teaspoonfuls of sugar and one-third teaspoonful of cinnamon. Spread this mixture over the dough, roll up like a jelly roll, cut in pieces three-fourths of an inch in thickness, and bake in quick oven fifteen minutes.

Hot cross buns

(Contributed)

To three cups of milk add flour enough to make a thick batter. Into this stir one cake of compressed yeast dissolved in warm water. Set this to rise over night. In the morning add a few spoonfuls of melted butter and one-half spoonful of grated nutmeg, one saltspoon of salt, one teaspoonful of soda, and flour enough to make a stiff dough like biscuit. Knead well and let rise five hours. Roll to one-half inch thickness, cut in round cakes and put in buttered baking pans. Let stand until light. Make a deep gash in each with a knife. Bake in moderate oven till light brown. Brush over the top with the beaten white of an egg and powdered sugar.

Currant buns

Warm a cupful of cream in a double boiler, take it from the fire and stir into it a cupful of melted butter which has not been allowed to cook in melting. Beat three eggs very light, add them to the cream and butter, then stir in a cupful of sugar. Dissolve a half-cake of yeast in a couple of tablespoonfuls of water, sift a good quart of flour, make a hollow in it, stir into it the yeast and then, after adding to the other mixture a teaspoonful, each, of powdered mace and cinnamon, put in the flour and yeast. Beat all well for a few minutes, add a cupful of currants that have been washed, dried and dredged with flour, pour into a shallow baking pan, let it rise for several hours until it has doubled in size, bake one hour in a rather quick oven. Sprinkle with fine sugar when done.

Raised muffins

In a quart of warm milk dissolve thoroughly half a yeast-cake. Stir into this two tablespoonfuls of sugar, a teaspoonful of salt, and a tablespoonful of melted cottolene or other fat. Add enough flour to make a quite stiff batter—not dough—and set to rise over night. In the morning whip into the batter four well-beaten eggs and turn into heated and greased muffin-tins. Bake at once.

English muffins

Bring a pint of milk to the boiling point and stir into it a teaspoonful of cottolene or other fat. Set aside until the mixture is lukewarm, then add two cups of flour into which a teaspoonful of salt has been sifted. Now beat in half a yeast-cake dissolved in a quarter of a cup of warm water, and set the batter aside to rise all night. In the morning add a cup of sifted flour, and with floured hands make lightly into round muffins and set to rise in greased muffin-tins for half an hour. Slip the rings and their contents on to a greased griddle and bake, first on one side, then on the other, until done.

English crumpets (No. 1)

Mix together three gills of lukewarm water, a half-teaspoonful, each, of salt and sugar and a teaspoonful of melted butter; then dissolve a quarter of a yeast-cake in this mixture. Into this stir enough flour to make a very stiff batter. Beat for ten minutes, adding as you do so enough lukewarm milk to make batter just stiff enough to be poured slowly from the bowl. Grease shallow muffin-rings, place these on a soapstone griddle, and when hot pour the batter into them to the depth of a quarter-inch and bake slowly, not turning until brown on the under side. Then turn for just a few minutes.

English crumpets (No. 2)

On baking-day take a pint of dough from your bread-bowl an hour before breakfast. Put into a bowl and make a hole in the middle. Have ready two eggs beaten very light, and work them into the dough. Then thin it with milk and water to the consistency of griddle-cakes; beat it well, let it rise until breakfast, bake them on a hot griddle, butter and send to the table hot.

QUICK BISCUITS, ETCETERA

Milk biscuits

One quart flour, three cups of milk, one tablespoonful mixed butter and cottolene or other fat, one heaping teaspoonful of baking-powder, half-teaspoonful of salt. Sift the salt with the flour, chop in the butter and cottolene or other fat, add the baking-powder and the milk and mix to a soft dough. Handle as little as possible. Roll out into a sheet an inch thick, cut into rounds and bake in a floured pan.

Milk-and-water biscuits

Make as in the preceding recipe, but using one and one-half cups of milk and the same quantity of water. Some housewives prefer these to the all-milk biscuits, alleging that the milk tends to make the dough heavy.

Quick Sally Lunn

A quart of flour sifted twice with a teaspoonful of baking-powder, one cupful of milk, one-half cupful of melted butter, four eggs, beaten light; one teaspoonful of salt. Add the sifted flour last, in great handfuls, stirring all the time, as long as you can use a spoon. The dough should be very soft; in fact, almost a batter. Bake in a mold with a funnel in the middle, and eat while hot.

Potato biscuits

Boil and mash six or eight potatoes. While warm, lay on a floured pastry-board, and run the rolling-pin over and over them until they are free from lumps. Turn into a bowl, wet with a cup of sweet milk, add a teaspoonful of melted butter; when well mixed work in half a cup of salted flour, or just enough to make a soft dough. Return to the board, roll out quickly and lightly into a thin sheet, and cut into round cakes. Bake in a quick oven. Butter as soon as they are done, laying one on top of the other in a pile. Eat before they fall.

The excellence of potato biscuits depends very greatly upon the softness of the dough, light handling, and quick baking. If properly made, they will be found extremely nice. They are a favorite Irish dish.

Graham biscuits

Stir together in a chopping-bowl a pint of graham flour and a half-pint of white flour. To this add a teaspoonful of salt, one of sugar, and two rounded teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Mix thoroughly, and chop into the mixture two tablespoonfuls of cottelene or other fat. Add a pint of milk, and if the mixture is then too stiff to handle, add enough water to make into a soft dough. Turn upon a floured board, roll out, and cut into biscuits, handling as little and as lightly as possible. Bake in a steady oven.

Virginia beaten biscuits

One pint of flour, one cup of water, one teaspoonful of salt. Mix into a stiff dough; transfer to a floured block of wood and beat with a rolling-pin, steadily, for ten minutes, shifting the dough often and turning it over several times. In the olden days half an hour was the regulation time, but ten minutes are enough if one has a strict eye to business. Cut into round cakes, prick with a straw and bake in a brisk oven.

MUFFINS AND THEIR CONGENERS

Whole wheat muffins

Into a quart of whole wheat flour stir a teaspoonful of salt and two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Beat three eggs light and stir them into three cups of rich milk. Add these to the flour, stir in a tablespoonful of melted cottolene or other fat, and beat very hard for at least five minutes. Turn into greased muffin-tins and bake in a quick oven.

Oatmeal muffins

(Contributed)

To one cup of oatmeal mush add one-half cup of milk, one well-beaten egg, one teaspoonful of butter, one tablespoonful of sugar and one cup of flour in which has been sifted two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Stir well together and bake in hot muffin-pans.

Sally’s muffins

One egg; a tablespoonful of sugar; one-quarter cup of butter. Beat all together thoroughly. Add one cup of milk, a little salt and one cup of flour into which is sifted two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Now add enough flour to make a batter a little stiffer than for griddle-cakes. Bake in well-buttered, hot muffin-tins.

Risen brunette muffins

Cream together two tablespoonfuls of brown sugar and one tablespoonful of butter and add to it three cups of warm (not hot) milk. Sift into a bowl three cups of graham flour and one of white, with a teaspoonful of salt. Pour into this the butter, sugar and milk mixture and add a cup of warm milk in which half a yeast-cake has been dissolved. Beat thoroughly and set in a warm place to rise for at least six hours. Butter muffin-tins, half fill with the mixture, and set on a stool by the range to rise for fifteen minutes before baking in a steady oven.

Graham puffs

Thoroughly beat the yolks of four eggs, and whip the whites to a stiff meringue. To the yolks add a pint of milk, a teaspoonful of salt, three teaspoonfuls of melted cottolene or other fat, and a tablespoonful of sugar. Sift two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder into a quart of graham flour and stir this gradually into the milk and yolks. Beat until all lumps are gone and you have a smooth batter, then, with a few strong strokes, add the stiffened whites of the eggs. Half fill deep heated muffin-tins with the batter and bake at once in a hot but steady oven.

Graham gems (No. 1)

Into a quart of warm milk stir four eggs that have been beaten only a little, add a tablespoonful, each, of melted butter and sugar. Add now, gradually, three cupfuls of graham flour that has been sifted with a heaping teaspoonful of baking-powder. Beat very hard for seven or eight minutes and bake in greased and heated gem pans.

Graham gems (No. 2)

Into a pint of warm milk whip three unbeaten eggs, one tablespoonful of melted butter and a teaspoonful of sugar. Gradually stir in a cup and a half of graham flour and beat hard for several minutes. Turn into heated gem pans, and bake in a very hot oven. Serve immediately.

Rice muffins

Make a batter of a quart of milk, three beaten eggs, a tablespoonful of melted butter, a teaspoonful, each, of salt and sugar, and two cups of prepared flour. Mix thoroughly and beat in a cup of cold boiled rice. Beat very hard and bake in a quick oven.

Graham muffins

Rub to a cream a tablespoonful of sugar and two of butter. Into this beat four eggs. Sift a teaspoonful of baking-powder into three cups of graham flour, add the butter and egg mixture, and beat very hard. Turn into heated and greased muffin-tins and bake in a very hot oven.

Popovers

Two cups of flour, sifted twice with one teaspoonful of baking-powder; half a teaspoonful of salt; two cups of milk; one egg, beaten very light. Beat for four minutes and bake in hot, buttered pâté, or gem pans, in a brisk oven. Serve at once.

WAFFLES

Risen waffles

Four eggs; two cups of milk; three tablespoonfuls of melted butter; one tablespoonful of sugar; three cupfuls of flour, sifted with half a teaspoonful of salt; one-half yeast-cake dissolved in warm water. Beat well and long; set in a warm place to rise and bake in waffle-irons.

Rice waffles

One cup of boiled rice; one pint of sweet milk; two eggs; one teaspoonful of baking-powder; one teaspoonful of salt; a tablespoonful of butter and flour to make a thin batter. Sift salt, baking-powder and one scant cup of flour twice together; add milk and eggs, beat in butter and rice. Beat two minutes.

Quick waffles

Two cups of flour sifted twice with one teaspoonful of baking-powder and the same of salt. Three eggs; one tablespoonful of butter or cottolene or other fat. Two cupfuls of milk.

Beat the yolks smooth, add the milk, and turn this upon the prepared flour. Whip lightly and quickly for one minute, add the stiffened whites and drop by the spoonful into heated and greased waffle-irons.

GRIDDLE CAKES

If you can get a soapstone griddle, use no other. Cakes are baked—not fried—upon it, and are thereby made comparatively wholesome. Set the griddle at the side of the range to heat gradually at least one hour before you begin to bake the cakes. If heated suddenly it is liable to crack. Clean with dry salt, then wipe with a clean cloth and it is ready for use. Never allow a drop of grease to touch it.

If you have an iron griddle, lubricate with a bit of salt pork, leaving just enough grease on the surface to prevent sticking. The popular prejudice against griddle-cakes is founded mainly upon the fact that dough or batter soaked in grease is abhorrent to dietetic ethics.

Soapstone and iron griddles alike need tempering or seasoning in order to do their work well. They are seldom “just right” at the first trial. Give them time and handle them patiently.

Buckwheat cakes (No. 1)

Mix together a quart of buckwheat flour, four tablespoonfuls of yeast, a handful of Indian meal, two tablespoonfuls of New Orleans molasses, a teaspoonful of salt and enough water to make a thin batter. Beat hard and set to rise in the warm kitchen. A pint of this may be left over in the morning after the baking of the cakes and used as a sponge the following night, the flour, etc., being added. If the batter seems sour, add a very little baking-soda. This batter may be kept in a stone crock for a week or longer.

Buckwheat cakes (No. 2)

One cup of milk and same of boiling water; two tablespoonfuls of molasses; half cake of compressed yeast dissolved in warm water; one-half teaspoonful of salt; two cups of buckwheat flour, or enough for a good batter.

Beat five minutes, and set in a warm place to rise. In the morning beat hard for one minute; if it be sour, add a little soda, and let it rise near the fire for half an hour before baking.

Quick buckwheat cakes

Two cups of buckwheat and half a cup of corn-meal; two cups of warm milk and half a cup of warm water; two tablespoonfuls of molasses, two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder; one even teaspoonful of salt.

Mix milk, water and molasses together. Sift meal and flour three times with the baking-powder and salt. Make a hole in the center of the flour, stir in the milk and water quickly and lightly until you have a good batter—not too stiff—and bake.

Sour milk buckwheat cakes

Make as in preceding recipe, substituting loppered milk or buttermilk for sweet, and a rounded teaspoonful of baking-soda for the baking-powder.

Whole wheat griddle-cakes

Sift a quart of whole wheat flour, a teaspoonful of baking-powder and one of salt well together. Stir into this a tablespoonful of melted butter, a tablespoonful of sugar, two beaten eggs and two cupfuls of milk. Beat all together and bake upon a soapstone griddle.

Lizzie’s flannel cakes

Two cups of flour; two cups of sweet milk; one egg; one teaspoonful of baking-powder; a generous pinch of salt. Beat the egg very light; add the milk and, lastly, with just enough beating to mix all together, the flour, sifted twice with salt and baking-powder. Bake at once.

After several years trial of this simple recipe, I can recommend it unhesitatingly as the best, cheapest and most wholesome way I know for preparing breakfast cakes. The excellence of the cakes depends upon quick mixing and baking. A soapstone griddle, which is never greased, should be used.

Waffles may be made in the same way mixed a little thinner by using less flour.

Huckleberry griddle-cakes

(Contributed)

To one cup of milk add one-half teaspoonful of salt, one teaspoonful of baking-powder, one tablespoonful of sugar and two well beaten eggs. Add sufficient flour to make a batter. Stir into this one pint of huckleberries rolled in flour. Fry on hot griddle. Butter them hot and serve.

Feather griddle-cakes

Add to a pint of water and milk a teaspoonful of salt, a half-teacupful of yeast and flour enough to make a batter. Let stand all night. In the morning add one cupful of thick sour milk, two eggs well beaten, one level tablespoonful of butter, one level teaspoonful of soda and flour enough to make the consistency of pancake batter. Let stand twenty minutes and then bake.

Rice griddle-cakes

Scald one pint of milk and let stand until cold. Then add one-half cake of compressed yeast, one teaspoonful of salt, one cup of boiled rice and about one and one-half cups of flour. Beat continuously for three minutes. Cover and let stand in warm place till morning. In the morning beat two eggs separately until they are very light. Add first the yolks and then the whites. Mix thoroughly and let stand fifteen minutes and then bake on hot griddle.

Peas griddle-cakes

Take two cups of cooked green peas and rub through a strainer. Pour into this one cup of boiling milk. Add a teaspoonful of butter and one of sugar and one of salt. When cold add one egg beaten till light and one cup of flour into which has been sifted three level teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Fry on a soapstone griddle.

French pancakes

To the yolks of three eggs add one cup of milk, one-half teaspoonful of salt and one teaspoonful of sugar. Pour one-third of this mixture on one-half cup of flour and stir to a smooth paste; then add the remainder of the mixture and beat well. To this add one-half teaspoonful of salad oil. Pour enough of the batter into a hot buttered frying-pan to cover the pan. When brown turn and brown the other side. Spread with butter and jelly, roll up and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Sour milk griddle-cakes

Into a quart of loppered milk stir a quart of flour, a teaspoonful of salt and two beaten eggs. Mix thoroughly, then add as much flour as will be needed to make a good batter. Last of all, add a teaspoonful of baking soda dissolved in a tablespoonful of hot water. Bake at once on a very hot griddle.

Stale bread griddle-cakes

Let two cupfuls of dry bread crumbs soak for an hour in a quart of milk. Into this beat a tablespoonful, each, of molasses and melted butter, a teaspoonful of salt and three well-beaten eggs. When thoroughly mixed, add half a cupful of flour which has been sifted with a half teaspoonful of baking-powder. Bake on a soapstone griddle if possible.

Hominy griddle-cakes

One cup of cold boiled hominy beaten to a smooth paste with a tablespoonful of melted butter, then whipped light with the yolks of the eggs; two eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately; one cup of milk; one tablespoonful of flour sifted twice, with an even teaspoonful of baking-powder and a teaspoonful of salt; one tablespoonful of molasses. Stir molasses into the milk, add to the hominy, butter and yolks; lastly, put in prepared flour and the whites of the eggs.

Sweet corn griddle-cakes

One cup of sweet corn fresh or canned, chopped fine and run through a vegetable press; one cup of hot milk; one tablespoonful, each, of butter and sugar; half teaspoonful of salt; one cup of flour sifted twice with a rounded teaspoonful of baking-powder and a little salt; two eggs. Mix as you would hominy cakes.

Corn-meal and graham griddle-cakes

Two cups of corn-meal and one cup of graham flour. The flour should be sifted three times with one even teaspoonful of baking-powder and a little salt. One quart of scalding milk. One tablespoonful of butter and the same of molasses, stirred to a cream. One even teaspoonful of salt. Two eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately.

Scald the meal with the milk, beat in butter and molasses and let it cool to blood warmth before adding the beaten yolks and the prepared flour alternately with the stiffened whites. If too stiff, thin with cold milk. Beat hard and bake. Wholesome and palatable if properly made.

Graham griddle-cakes

Two cups of graham flour; two tablespoonfuls of butter, or one of butter and one of cottolene or other fat; one of molasses; three cups of milk; four eggs; one teaspoonful of baking-powder and twice as much salt sifted twice with the flour; half a cup of white flour mixed thoroughly with the brown. Stir shortening and molasses to a cream, beat in the yolks of the eggs, then the milk, a little at a time, lastly the mixed flour alternately with the whites of the eggs. The batter should be like thick cream before you bake it.

VARIOUS BREAKFAST BREADS OF INDIAN MEAL

Corn bread made of northern meal

Two cupfuls of corn-meal; one cupful of flour; two and a half cupfuls of milk; three eggs; a tablespoonful, each, of butter and white sugar; one teaspoonful of salt; two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder.

Melt the butter and stir it into the eggs, which should have been beaten very light, and after sifting the salt, sugar and baking-powder with the meal and flour, put in the milk, eggs and butter. Beat hard and bake for half an hour in a greased pan in a steady oven.

Corn bread made of southern meal

Beat two eggs light; stir half a cupful of cold boiled rice into a pint of milk and add to the eggs, rice and milk a tablespoonful of melted butter. Sift a teaspoonful of salt into two cups of Indian meal; stir all together and bake in shallow pans. Eat hot.

This is the Southern batter bread, or “egg bread.”

Indian meal crumpets

Heat a quart of milk to scalding and pour it gradually upon two full cups of corn-meal. When thoroughly mixed, stir into this a tablespoonful of granulated sugar and a quarter of a yeast-cake dissolved in a little warm milk. Cover the bowl or batter with a clean cloth and set to rise. Early in the morning add a tablespoonful of melted cottolene or other fat and beat hard for a moment before pouring the batter into muffin-tins. Set near the range for twenty minutes and bake.

Steamed corn loaf

Mix together in a bowl a pint of corn-meal and a half-pint of flour. Make a hole in the center of the mixture and pour into this three large cupfuls of sour milk. Beat hard and stir in a tablespoonful of melted butter, two tablespoonfuls of sugar and a teaspoonful of baking-soda dissolved in a tablespoonful of boiling water. Beat for several minutes, turn into a greased mold with a tightly-fitting cover and steam for two hours. Turn out upon a platter, set in the oven for five minutes, and send to the table.

Sour milk corn bread

Mix together in a bowl three cups of corn-meal and one cup of graham flour. Stir in a teaspoonful of salt, a tablespoonful of sugar, a tablespoonful of melted butter and three cups of sour milk. Now beat in three eggs, whipped light, and a small teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a little boiling water. Beat for five minutes, then pour into a greased mold with a funnel in the center. Bake for an hour, or until a straw comes out clean from the thickest part of the loaf.

Sour milk corn-meal griddle-cakes

One-half cup of white corn-meal and the same of flour; one and a half cups of loppered milk or buttermilk; one tablespoonful of molasses and the same of melted butter; one rounded teaspoonful of soda and half as much salt sifted twice with flour and meal; one egg beaten very light. Beat molasses and butter to a cream; add the milk, the egg, lastly the prepared meal and flour. Beat hard one minute.

Buttermilk corn bread

Two cups of buttermilk; three well-beaten eggs; two scant cups of Indian meal (white); one rounded teaspoonful of soda; one tablespoonful of sugar.

Beat the eggs separately, sift the soda twice through the meal and add one teaspoonful of salt. Beat the ingredients well together, adding the whites last of all. Bake in a moderate oven in muffin-rings, with a large spoonful of the batter to each, and cook to a golden brown.

Dinah’s corn bread

Sift two cups of corn-meal twice with an even teaspoonful of soda and as much salt. Beat two eggs very light. Mix one teaspoonful of sugar in three cups of buttermilk or loppered milk, add the eggs and a tablespoonful of melted butter, lastly, the prepared flour. Have ready three well-greased deep jelly-cake tins (warmed), divide the batter between them and bake in a quick oven. Eat hot.

Corn-meal gems

Sift together a half-cup of flour, a cup of Indian meal, a teaspoonful of baking-powder and a half-teaspoonful of salt; into a pint of milk whip three beaten eggs, a tablespoonful of melted cottolene or other fat and two tablespoonfuls of granulated sugar. Make a hole in the meal and flour mixture and gradually pour the liquid into this, beating steadily. Beat hard for about five minutes, pour into greased and heated gem pans and bake in a good oven. Remove from the tins and send immediately to the table.

Two-and-two Indian meal muffins

One full cup, each, of Indian meal and white flour; two cups of milk; two eggs; two tablespoonfuls of melted butter; two teaspoonfuls of sugar; two even teaspoonfuls of baking-powder; two saltspoonfuls of salt. Sift meal and flour together three times with baking-powder and salt. Add beaten yolks to the milk, then the butter and sugar beaten together, lastly the prepared flour and meal. If too stiff thin with milk. Bake in hot muffin-tins or in gem pans.

Johnny-cakes

(Contributed)

Sift with two-thirds of a cup of flour, one tablespoonful of sugar, two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder and one teaspoonful of salt. Pour two cups of boiling milk over two cups of cornmeal and when cool add two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, the yolks of two eggs well beaten and the sifted flour. Beat the mixture and just before putting in the oven add the whites of two eggs whipped light and dry. Bake in a shallow pan and serve hot.

Corn pone

(Contributed)

Mix with cold water one quart of sifted corn-meal, one teaspoonful of salt and one tablespoonful of melted butter. Mold into oval cakes with the hands. Bake in a hot oven in well-greased pans. The crust should be brown.

Hominy cake

(Contributed)

Take one cupful of hot boiled hominy, add one teaspoonful of salt and yolks of two well-beaten eggs. Add slowly one cupful of milk, one cupful of corn-meal and the whipped whites of two eggs. Bake in a flat tin in a hot oven twenty or thirty minutes.

Corn waffles

(Contributed)

Sift together one cup of white flour, one cup of corn-meal, two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder and one-half teaspoonful of salt. Beat the yolks of three eggs until thick, add one and a fourth cups of milk and stir into the flour mixture. Then add one tablespoonful of melted butter and the whites of three eggs beaten stiff. Bake on a hot waffle-iron and serve with caramel sauce.

DIVERS KINDS OF TOAST

Buttered toast

Cut the crusts from thin slices of stale bread and toast them over a clear fire to a delicate brown; spread lightly with butter and pile upon a hot plate; keep in the open oven until sent to the table.

German toast

Pare the slices and cut into strips twice as wide as your middle finger and about as long. Toast quickly on both sides, butter lightly and serve very hot.

Baked milk toast

Trim off the crust from slices nearly half an inch thick; toast to a uniform light brown. Have on the range a pan of boiling water, salted. As you remove each slice from the toaster dip quickly into the boiling water and lay in a well-buttered pudding dish; buttering the toast while smoking hot and salting each slice. When all the soaked toast is packed into place, cover with scalding milk in which has been melted a tablespoonful of butter. Cover closely and bake fifteen minutes.

This is so far superior to the usual insipid preparation of milk toast that no one who has eaten the first can enjoy the poor parody.

Cream toast

Toast, and proceed as in last recipe, but dipping each slice in hot salted milk instead of water, and when in the dish covering with a mixture one-third milk, two-thirds cream, made very hot. Add a pinch of soda to the cream to prevent curdling.

Cream toast, baked, is delicious and nutritious. Either of these dishes can be made of graham bread.

Fried toast

Cut rather thick slices of stale bread round with a cake cutter; spread upon a platter and pour over them a mixture of one cup of milk with an egg beaten into it, then salted slightly. Turn the slices until saturated, drain carefully and fry as you would doughnuts in deep hot cottolene or other fat, turning when half done. Lay scrambled or poached eggs or a nice mince upon them for breakfast.

Tomato toast

Prepare precisely as directed in recipe for baked milk toast, but pour over the pile of slices in the dish a rich strained tomato sauce, lifting the toast with a fork, that the sauce may get at each piece. Cover and bake. Serve in the dish as an accompaniment to chops, omelet or hash.

Anchovy toast

Cut stale bread into strips an inch and a half wide and three inches long; toast, butter and spread with anchovy paste, as a foundation for scrambled or poached eggs.

Sardine toast

(Contributed)

Butter rounds of toast and set in the oven to brown. Drain the oil from a box of sardines and flake with a silver fork. Put into a saucepan one tablespoonful of butter, one teaspoonful of lemon juice and one-half teaspoonful of onion juice. Stir until hot and then add the flaked sardines. Stir until the fish is hot. Spread on the hot rounds of bread and serve at once.

Cheese custard toast

(Contributed)

Sprinkle hot toasted bread with grated cheese. Set in the oven until the cheese melts. Take out and arrange in layers in a pudding dish and pour over it an unsweetened custard. Put in a moderate oven until the custard is done. Serve at once.

Oyster toast

(Contributed)

Put twelve oysters into a saucepan with their own liquor and one-quarter teaspoonful of white pepper, one glass of milk and two cloves. Boil for three minutes. Mix one ounce of butter with one-half ounce of flour; put this in a pan and stir well. Add one teaspoonful of lemon juice and, when boiling, pour the mixture over the toast and serve.

Mushroom toast

(Contributed)

Cut the stems of mushrooms fine and stew in a little milk. Slice, in quarters, the tops. Cook five minutes in plenty of butter. Then add cream enough to make a sauce; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Let the stems simmer until tender, adding some cream, if needed. There should be sauce enough to moisten the toast. Pour on toast and serve.

Ham toast

(Contributed)

Mince the lean of two slices of cooked ham very finely. Beat the yolks of two eggs, mix with the ham, adding enough cream or stock to make it soft. Keep it on the fire long enough to warm through, stirring all the time. Have ready some buttered toast cut in rounds. Lay the ham mixture neatly on each piece.

EGGS

“The following method of determining the age of eggs is practised in the markets of Paris. About six ounces of common cooking salt is put into a large glass, which is then filled with water. When the salt is in solution an egg is dropped into the glass. If the egg is only one day old, it immediately sinks to the bottom; if any older it does not reach the bottom of the glass. If three days old, it sinks only just below the surface. From five days upwards it floats; the older it is the more it protrudes out of the water.”—German Newspaper.

Boiled eggs (No. 1)

Be sure the water is at a rapid boil. Wash the eggs in warm water, leaving them in it just long enough to take off the chill. If you put them on to boil while cold you must allow twenty seconds for the shells to get warm. Boil steadily three minutes and a half, take out, wrap in a warmed napkin and send immediately to table.

Boiled eggs (No. 2)

Wash in warm water; lay in boiling water and remove the saucepan promptly from the fire to the side of the range where it will hold the heat, but can not possibly boil. Cover closely and leave thus for seven or eight minutes, according to the size of the eggs. It will be of a custard-like consistency all through, and be far more digestible than when the white is firm and the yolk soft.

Poached eggs

Add a little vinegar to the water in which you poach eggs, to prevent the whites from spreading. Breaking each one into a shallow cup about a quarter of an hour before it is to be cooked is also a good plan.

Be sure the water is boiling and free from specks. If you have no egg-poacher, use a clean frying-pan. Fill with boiling water; draw to the side of the range, slip the eggs, one by one, upon the surface, set carefully back over the fire and boil gently three minutes, or until the whites are firm. Take up with a flat perforated spoon, lay upon rounds of buttered toast, trim off ragged edges and dust lightly with salt and white pepper. Celery salt gives a pleasant flavor to poached eggs, and some relish a drop of onion juice upon each.

Eggs poached in milk

Proceed as with those poached in water, using boiling milk instead. When done, transfer to slices of hot buttered toast laid upon a platter and pour over all a white sauce—plain drawn butter, or butter drawn in stock of some kind. Chicken stock is particularly good for this.

Scrambled eggs

Have a tablespoonful of butter hissing hot in the frying-pan. Break six eggs into a bowl; add, without breaking the eggs, two tablespoonfuls of cream, or, if you have none, of milk in which half a teaspoonful of corn-starch has been wet; add pepper, salt, and a little finely minced parsley; turn all into the pan, and stir incessantly in all directions, until you have a creamy mass.

Turn out upon buttered toast or into a hot water dish and serve before the mass hardens.

Scrambled eggs in cups

With a rather large tin “shape” cut round out of slices of stale bread an inch thick. With a small “shape” cut more than half through these rounds and dig out the crumb carefully, leaving bottom and sides a quarter of an inch thick. Set in a pan on the upper grating of the oven to crisp. When of a delicate brown, butter the insides and edges of the “cups” and leave in the oven three minutes longer. Arrange on a dish and fill with scrambled eggs prepared as in the last recipe.

Fried eggs

Fry slices of bacon quickly, take out the meat and keep it hot; strain the fat that ran from them, add a tablespoonful of cottolene or other fat or dripping, bring to a boil and break into the pan as many eggs as you need. Slip a spatula under each, as soon as it is fairly “set” and reverse it dexterously if you like “turned” eggs.

Trim ragged and discolored edges, arrange in the center of a hot platter and lay the bacon about them.

Fried eggs with brown sauce

Put a good lump of butter into the frying-pan, and when it hisses sharply, cook the eggs as directed in the last recipe. When done, dish and keep them hot over boiling water. Now put two more tablespoonfuls of butter into the pan; fry brown, then add one tablespoonful of vinegar and a little onion juice with pepper and salt. Boil the whole together for two minutes, pour it over the eggs, and serve.

Deviled eggs

Boil six eggs hard, cut carefully in half, and take out the yolks. Rub these to a paste with two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, one-half teaspoonful of Chili sauce, and a saltspoonful, each, of salt, pepper and French mustard. Form this mixture into balls that will fit into the halved whites. Set these halves on end on a hot platter, put a yolk-ball in each, and keep hot while you make the sauce to pour about them. To make this, cook together a teaspoonful of butter and one of flour, and pour over them a half pint of hot milk with a pinch of soda stirred in it. When this sauce is thick and smooth, add to it one beaten egg and a tablespoonful of finely minced parsley. Remove immediately from the fire and pour around the eggs.

Mince of tongue and eggs

Boil a fresh calf’s tongue, let it get cold, and mince fine. Heat a half-pint of soup stock, and cook together in a frying-pan a tablespoonful of butter and one of browned flour. On this pour the hot soup stock, and cook until you have a thick, brown sauce. Into this turn the chopped tongue, and toss and stir until smoking hot. Season with a teaspoonful of tomato catsup, a teaspoonful of onion juice, salt and pepper. Have ready slices of toast on a heated platter, pour the hot mixture over these; put a poached egg in the center of each slice of toast, and serve.

Kidneys are delicious cooked in this way.

Mince of ham and eggs

Prepare as above, but using cold boiled and minced ham in place of the tongue. A mixture of cold liver and ham is very palatable.

Savory eggs

Dissolve a pinch of soda in a cup of cream and heat the cream. In another vessel heat a pint of stock. Turn into the stock six beaten eggs, season to taste with salt, pepper and minced parsley; cook until the eggs begin to thicken, stirring all the time; add the cream and serve on slices of lightly buttered toast.

A curry of eggs

Put into a saucepan one tablespoonful of butter, and when this has melted, stir into it a tablespoonful of flour mixed with a teaspoonful of curry powder. When these are thoroughly blended with the butter pour slowly into the saucepan a cupful of veal, mutton or chicken stock, half a teaspoonful of onion juice, and season with salt. Stir until you have a smooth sauce, then lay in it six hard-boiled eggs cut into slices about half an inch thick. Cook until the eggs are thoroughly heated.

A simple omelet

(Contributed)

Beat the yolks and whites of six eggs separately, and stir three tablespoonfuls of milk into the yolks. Melt a tablespoonful of butter in a hot frying-pan. Stir the yolks and whites very lightly together; pepper and salt them, and turn the frothed mass into the frying-pan. Keep the omelet from sticking to the bottom and sides of the pan by frequently slipping a knife or cake-turner around the sides and under the bottom of the egg mixture. When the omelet is set, slip it off upon a hot platter, and, as you do so, fold it over quickly and lightly. Serve at once.

An English omelet

Break six eggs, and separate the yolks from the whites. Beat the yolks until they are thick. Add a saltspoonful of salt to the whites, and whip them until they are very stiff. Now, with quick strokes, lightly stir the whites into the yolks. Have a tablespoonful of butter melted in a frying-pan and turn the beaten eggs into this. With a knife keep the omelet loosened from the sides and bottom of the pan, and take care that it does not scorch on the bottom. When “set” slip the omelet upon a hot platter, and, as it leaves the pan, fold it over upon itself, sprinkle with salt, and send at once to the table.

Omelet with tomato sauce

Make what is known in cookery as a “white roux” by cooking in a saucepan a tablespoonful of butter and one of flour, and, when they bubble, pouring over them a cupful of strained and seasoned tomato juice. Keep this sauce hot while you make an omelet by the foregoing recipe; dish it, and after it is on the platter pour the tomato sauce over and around it.

A bread omelet (baked)

Soak three tablespoonfuls of stale crumbs in a cupful of milk for two hours. Beat six eggs—whites and yolks separately—very light. Into the yolks stir the soaked crumbs, and season the mixture with salt and pepper. Last of all, stir in with a few light strokes the stiffened whites. Butter a deep pudding dish, pour the mixture into this, set it on the lower grating of a quick oven and bake until light and brown. Sift brown crumbs over the top and serve the omelet as soon as it is removed from the oven.

Omelet aux fines herbes

Chop finely parsley, thyme, summer savory, chives, or any green herbs you fancy; make two tablespoonfuls in all; season with paprika and celery salt. Make an omelet in the usual way, pour into the pan, and, before it forms, sprinkle the herbs over the surface, stirring gently to mix them. Cook then as you would a plain omelet. A parsley omelet is made according to this recipe, using no herbs except parsley.

Oyster omelet

Before putting your omelet over the fire, have ready the filling. Chop a dozen oysters into tiny bits. Stir together over the fire a large spoonful of butter and one of flour. When smooth and bubbling draw to the side of the range and add gradually three tablespoonfuls of cream (with a pinch of soda), and the same quantity of strained oyster liquor. Set back over the fire and stir until it boils. Season with paprika and salt; add the chopped oysters, and bring again to a boil. Set in boiling water while you make the omelet. When this is ready to fold over, cover with the cooked oysters, fold, and turn out upon a very hot dish.

Clam omelet is made in the same way.

Baked mushroom omelet

Peel and cut into quarters a dozen fresh mushrooms and put them into a saucepan with a tablespoonful of butter, pepper and salt to taste, and a few drops of lemon juice. Cover the pan and simmer slowly for ten minutes. Add one cupful of thickened chicken or veal stock, and cook slowly ten minutes longer. Then stir in six eggs, well-beaten, turn into a buttered bake-dish, sift browned crumbs over the top, and set upon the upper grating of a quick oven until the eggs are “set.” Five minutes should be enough. Serve at once in the bake-dish.

Daffodils

Chop the whites of six hard-boiled eggs fine, then run through a vegetable press. Have ready a cup of drawn butter, seasoned with pepper, salt and onion juice. Mix the whites with this, and keep hot over boiling water. Have ready eight rounds of toast, buttered and slightly moistened with gravy—chicken, veal or turkey. Arrange on a hot platter and cover each round with the white mixture, flattening it on top.

Run the yolks through the press, reducing them to a yellow powder, season with salt and pepper, and put a spoonful in the center of each white round.

Nesting eggs

Boil six eggs hard, and throw into cold water. When cold, strip off the whites and shred them into long straws. Heat a flat dish—one that will bear fire—and arrange the shreds around the inner edge. Have ready a handful of celery (shredded like the eggs), which has been stewed tender in a little milk, then seasoned. Lay this inside of the lines of white shavings, and put a few spoonfuls of melted butter over both. Set in the oven until very hot.

Pick to pieces a cupful of cold boiled or baked fish, and run the yolks of the eggs through the colander or vegetable press. Mix with the fish, moisten with drawn butter, and mold into egg-shaped balls. Dispose these neatly within the “nest,” and pour over them a cupful of drawn butter to give the desired whiteness. Shut up in the oven for a few minutes to get them heated through, and serve.

This is a less elaborate dish than would seem at first reading.

If you have stewed celery left from yesterday’s dinner, and cold fish, the rest is easy enough.

Chicken or other meat may be substituted for the fish.

Cheese omelet

Make a plain omelet, and when nearly done, strew powdered Parmesan cheese over it. Fold, transfer to a hot dish, strew more cheese on top, and hold a red-hot shovel near enough to scorch the cheese.

Baked soufflé of eggs (No. 1)

Scald a cup of milk, putting in a tiny pinch of soda. Beat the yolks of six eggs until light and creamy, and the whites till stiff enough to stand alone. Add one-half teaspoonful of salt, a dash of pepper and one rounded tablespoonful of butter to the milk and stir it into the yolks; then beat in the whites very quickly. Pour into a deep, buttered pudding dish and bake in a moderate oven ten minutes, or to a delicate brown. Serve immediately in the bake-dish.

Baked eggs soufflé (No. 2)

Beat six eggs light, whites and yolks separately. Heat one cupful of milk, add one teaspoonful of corn-starch, one-half teaspoonful of salt, and the whipped yolks of the eggs. Cook in a saucepan until as thick as cream, add the whites, beaten stiff, put into a well-buttered frying-pan, set in a hot oven and bake well until browned slightly, then slide off upon a hot platter.

Eggs and tomatoes

Cook a tablespoonful of butter and one of flour together in a saucepan until smooth and hot. Add a cupful of tomatoes, canned or raw, chopped fine, and strained from the juice. Season with paprika, celery salt, a half teaspoonful of sugar, and a teaspoonful of onion juice. Cook five minutes. Have ready on a bowl six eggs, beaten—whites and yolks together; take the saucepan from the fire and add the contents gradually to the eggs. Set back over the fire, stir for one minute, or until the eggs are set, and serve in a hot, deep dish.

Olla podrida omelet

Make a roux of one tablespoonful of butter and the same of browned flour in a deep frying-pan. When hissing hot stir in one cupful of canned tomato, one-half cupful of canned mushrooms, sliced fine, the same quantity of minced ham, tongue or chicken. Season with onion juice, paprika and salt to taste. Let it simmer five or eight minutes, then stir in four beaten eggs. Stir carefully as it thickens, and when the eggs are set serve on buttered toast.

Scrambled eggs with cheese

(Contributed)

Break ten eggs and slip them into a saucepan. Beat them with one-fourth of a pound of butter, one-fourth of a pound of grated cheese and salt and pepper to taste. Butter a saucepan and when hot, pour in the mixture and allow it to cook for five minutes over a light fire, stirring all the while. When the mixture becomes quite thick, pour into a deep dish, and serve with fried toast.

Scrambled eggs with asparagus tops

(Contributed)

Cut the tender tops of asparagus into pieces one-half inch long. Cook them in salted water for about ten minutes, then let them drain. Scramble the eggs and when they are cooked add the asparagus tops and serve on toast. Lobsters, cooked and cut into dice, may be substituted for the asparagus tops.

Rice omelet

(Contributed)

To one cupful of cold boiled rice add one cupful of warm milk, one tablespoonful of melted butter, one teaspoonful of salt and a dash of pepper; mix well and add three well-beaten eggs. Heat a tablespoonful of butter in a frying-pan and when hot pour in the omelet and set the pan in a hot oven. When it is thoroughly cooked fold it double, turn out on a hot dish and serve at once.

Fish omelet

(Contributed)

Make about a half pint of white roux, add a piece of butter about the size of an egg, twelve shelled and cooked shrimps; season with salt and pepper; let it cook for two or three minutes, stirring all the time, then add half of a green sweet pepper, chopped fine, and cook for one minute. Make an omelet of six eggs; when brown, turn up and fill with this mixture. Serve at once on a hot platter.

Frizzled beef and eggs

(Contributed)

To every half pound of chipped beef allow half a pint of milk, one tablespoonful of butter and one tablespoonful of flour. Put the butter into a frying-pan; when hot add the beef and stir for about two minutes, or until the butter begins to brown, then dredge in the flour. Stir well, add the milk and a little pepper, and just before taking from the fire whip in two well-beaten eggs.

Ham omelet

(Contributed)

Make an omelet in the usual way; pour into an omelet pan and before the egg sets sprinkle over the top one teacupful of finely minced, cold, cooked ham.

Egg croquettes

(Contributed)

Cut hard-boiled eggs into one-quarter inch dice. Add one-fourth as many chopped mushrooms and turn into a thick white sauce. When cold, mold into croquettes, dip into egg, then in bread crumbs and fry in deep fat.

Eggs in cases

(Contributed)

Make little paper cases of buttered writing paper; put a small piece of butter in each and a little chopped parsley or onion; pepper and salt. Put the cases upon a gridiron over a moderate fire of bright coals, and when the butter melts break a fresh egg into each case. Strew over them a few buttered bread-crumbs, and when almost done glaze the tops with a hot shovel.

Minced eggs

(Contributed)

Chop up, but not too fine, four or five hard-boiled eggs. Put over the fire, in a saucepan, one tablespoonful of butter, and when it begins to bubble, stir into it one tablespoonful of flour; cook one minute, then add one cupful of hot milk. When it cooks thick like cream, put in the minced eggs. Stir it for a few minutes, and serve garnished with sippets of toast.

Scalloped eggs

(Contributed)

Slice in rings twelve hard-boiled eggs. Cover the bottom of a well-buttered baking dish with fine bread-crumbs; over this put a layer of eggs, some small pieces of butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Alternate in this way until the dish is filled, being careful to have bread-crumbs on top. Add two tablespoonfuls of rich milk or cream and bake in a moderate oven.

Shirred eggs

Butter small “nappies” and drop an egg carefully into each, taking care not to break the yolk. Set the nappies in a pan of boiling water on the range, and cook until the white is set. Put on each egg a bit of butter, and a dash each of pepper and salt. Serve at once.

FAMILIAR TALK

WHO RULES THE HOME?

The question is seldom put so baldly. Indulgent husbands yield the point in verbal gallantry. Politic wives make it a point of conscience and etiquette to speak of their husbands as owners of house and contents and lawful directors in all pertaining thereunto. At heart, the complaisant Benedict knows his will to be potent, if not supreme, in home and family. The wedded Beatrice is secretly conscious that she can wind her boastful Benedict about her taper finger, and he will not suspect.

An old, old ballad, warbled with sly smiles by our foremothers, thus sums up her view of the matter:

“Now, sisters, since we’ve made it plain That the case is really so, We’ll even let them hold the rein, But we’ll show them the way to go!”

Honest John, while his sinewy fingers feel the taut rein between them, believes himself master of the situation. He pays for house, food and servants, and often works hard for the money that secures these for his family. Upon general principles he has a right to know that the money is wisely spent and husbanded; a right to be well lodged and fed and made as comfortable when at home as his means will allow. If he sees furniture abused, food badly—hence unwholesomely—cooked, and needless waste in any department, he has an unquestionable right to direct his wife’s attention to the existing state of things, and insist that it be amended. On the other hand, in giving his wife his name, he has made her the managing, as he is the financial, partner of the firm matrimonial.

She is not his hireling.

Failure to comprehend this vital truth wrecks the happiness of more married couples than incompatibility of temper, fickleness and intemperance, all put together.

A reasonably good wife earns so much more than her own living that the surplus ought to go to her credit. If not in money, in a hundred other ways. When John stoops to captious surveillance of her methods, and personal inspection of her work, he degrades her to the position of a suspected menial, and sinks his manhood into Bettyishness. “Bettyishness,” according to lexicographers, is the synonym for “womanishness,” and for John to be “womanish” is to be unmanly; Mary would rather have him savage, now and then.

I saw a spotless reputation discounted the other day, and many rare, amiable traits of disposition shrivel as waste paper in the fire, under a single sarcastic utterance of a society woman who had her own reasons for disliking the person under discussion.

“Yes!” she said, dubiously, to the praise an elderly matron had given an excellent son and brother. “But, then, he is such a ladylike person!”

The epithet was apt. Not one of us could deny it. Every woman present, while she laughed, would have preferred to have her husband called a brute.

John takes ugly risks when he tempts his hitherto loyal spouse to name him to her confidential self as “Bettyish,” “Miss Nancy-ish” or a “Mollycoddle.” They all mean the same thing. As a sloven he may be forgiven in consideration of the solid manliness back of personal carelessness. We wink at rusty shoes, and collars awry, and tousled hair, and missing sleeve-links. For the same reason we condone crossness, and even a touch of savagery. When he comes home “in a temper,” he has had a trying day down town, or he is hot, or headachy, or hungry. Womanly ingenuity is set to work to soothe down the inclement mood, and womanly love glides to the front with the mantle of tenderest charity to hide the fault from others, and put it out of our own minds when it is past.

I know a man—squarely-built, robust and keen-eyed—who carries the keys of the store-room, and lends them to his wife at night and morning to give out the supplies needed for the daily meals. He registers in day-book and ledger every pound of butter and box of crackers and quart of vinegar brought into the house, with the date of purchase.

I knew another (who ceased from his labors ten years ago), who visited kitchen, pantries and store-room several times every week to see that everything was clean and orderly. He used to smell milk-pans, run a critical finger around the insides of kettles and pots and inquire into the destination of scraps—and all without a blush or misgiving. In each case it was, of course, impossible to keep servants who could get any other place. Wives belong to the class that can not give warning.

If either of these men would have tolerated the apparition in his counting-room or office, at stated, or irregular, periods of his wife—bent upon inspection of accounts and sales, the clerks undergoing examination, or standing as witnesses of his humiliation—then he was justified to his conscience for his policy of home rule.

Mary would go to prison for her John, and to the scaffold with him. She springs to arms in his defense if her nearest of kin dare to intimate that he is not the pink of perfection she would have them believe. His grossest eccentricities are graces so long as they are masculine.

But let him prowl into the pantry, peep into the bread-box, criticize the arrangement or _de_rangement of china-shelves, pull open linen drawers, spy out dusty rungs of chairs, take down, sort, and hang in better order the contents of clothes-hooks and hat-racks—and he may shift for and shield himself. With lofty scorn the wife of his immaculate shirt bosom leaves him to the fate he deserves.

In which course there is some reason and a little unreason. For which of us does not draw upon John’s sympathies in her domestic distresses? He must not undertake the management of Bridget, or Daphne, or Marie. These be womanish matters, in which a man should not intermeddle. It may be the most temperate of suggestions, such as, “My dear, I don’t like to find fault, but if you would speak to Margaret about meddling with the papers upon my table when she dusts the library?” It is a distinct trespass upon wifely preserves. Margaret is under the protection of her mistress’ wing. The interests and credit of the two are identical. But there comes a day when the league snaps in two, like scorched twine. The maid gives warning, and company is expected, and the mistress “did think she had a right to expect better things from Margaret, after all the kindness she has shown her in sickness and in health, and the excellent wages she has given her, and here, at the most inconvenient time she could have chosen, the creature is deserting her!”

Thus runs the torrent of talk into the ears of a man who left a much worse complication behind him in his office when he set his face toward home and imaginary peace. Had he found fault with Margaret a week ago, he would have been a “Molly.” Should he withhold sympathy from the mistress to-day, to the extent of commending the ingrate’s past services, and wondering if there may not be possible palliation somewhere for her present behavior—he is unfeeling, and—“a MAN!” When a woman brings out the monosyllable in that accent, she may as well go a semi-tone higher and say, “Monster!”

To be explicit, John must dance when his spouse puts the pipes to her lips, and not presume to mourn but at her lamenting. As her sister, my sympathies topple dangerously toward her. As an impartial chronicler I can not deny that much may be said in his defense, even when he is convicted of womanish meddling. He is but a passenger upon the domestic craft in fair weather, a paying passenger, who is expected, nevertheless, to be smilingly content with his accommodations, to eat as he is fed, sleep upon the bed as it is made, and to complain of nothing until the sea gets rough, and another and a stout hand is needed on deck and in the rigging.

The principle should work well both ways, or it will go to pieces of its own weight.

FISH FOR BREAKFAST

A modern Peter Magnus, always on the alert for coincidences, once called my attention to the singular fitness of the height of the fish season and the coming of Lent.

“It happens uncommonly convenient, at any rate. How very, very awkward it would be if there were no fish in the market just when the Church forbids meat!” prosed my interlocutor, whose nationality I need not specify.

I might have replied, had there been any hope of his seeing the point of the story, with the anecdote of one of his countrymen who invited me to view the total eclipse of the moon through his telescope, and, while I gazed, remarked upon the happy accident that this particular eclipse “had taken place at the full of the moon.”

Dame Nature adjusts kindly and cleverly all seasons and happenings to the need of her children. Fish, easily digested and rich in phosphates, are in their delicious prime as winter suddenly relaxes her hold upon our world and our systems. We needed fats to keep up animal fats in cold weather. The first warmer days ease the taut running-gear of muscles, nerves and digestive apparatus. She cries, “’Ware meat!” peremptorily. However deaf we may be to the Church’s behest, we can not afford to disregard the Great Mother’s.

The breaking up of winter, the general letting down of physical energies and the abundant supply of food precisely adapted to the season’s needs, form a “coincidence” that the most stupid must perceive. The like principle of demand and supply might, one might imagine, be recognized in the matter of breakfast foods. Fish, rightly cooked, tempts the appetite and does not overload the stomach. Another recommendation which should have weight with commuters and “hustlers,” is that the yielding fibers require less strenuous mastication than those of steaks, chops and rashers.

The truism that as a nation we are inordinate flesh-consumers is tattered by much wear. Since vegetarianism comes as a hard lesson to the mass of our race, and the exacting palate demands more definite flavors than those of eggs in any form, resort to crustacean and finny delicacies should follow as a matter of course and of common sense.

Shad

Sturgeon is known in England as the “Queen’s Own Fish.” Hiawatha names him as the “King of Fishes.” The American epicure has transferred this title to the more delicately flavored salmon. If a vote of native-born gourmands of all ranks of society were taken, I think the shad would be the elect favorite—the dainty queen of fishes, the more royal for the wealth of roes that bespeak her prime.

Planked shad

Have your fish cleaned and split down the back. Wash and wipe dry. Have ready a clean oak or hickory plank, about two and one-half inches in thickness and of such a length that it will go easily into your oven. Set it in the oven until it is heated through. Rub your shad on both sides with an abundance of butter, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Lay it, open side up, on the hot plank and fasten it firmly into place by putting a tin tack at each of the four corners. Lay the plank on the upper grating of the oven, and rub the fish with butter every few minutes until done. You can tell when this point is reached by testing with a fork. Carefully withdraw the tacks and slip the fish upon a hot platter. Serve with melted butter, and garnish with slices of lemon and sprigs of parsley.

Broiled shad with sauce piquante

Split the fish down the back, wash, wipe dry, and lay it open on a well-greased gridiron. Broil over clear coals, taking care to turn the fish often, as it burns easily. If the shad is a thick one it will take about twenty minutes to cook thoroughly. Remove carefully from the gridiron, lay on a hot fish platter, butter well and sprinkle with pepper and salt. Pass with the fish a sauce made in the following manner:

Rub to a cream three tablespoonfuls of butter and two teaspoonfuls of lemon juice. Whip into this two teaspoonfuls of finely minced parsley. The sauce should be light green in color. Keep in a cold place until time to serve it with the fish.

Fried shad

Mrs. S. T. Rorer, whose authority on culinary counsels few dare dispute, says: “Shad, being rich in oils, should never be fried.”

In tide-water Virginia, where shad are eaten in their perfection and within a few hours after they are drawn from the river, frying is a most popular method of preparing them. Some cooks there rid the fish of all suspicion of an oily taste by holding it up by the gills and pouring a pint or so of boiling water over it. After the shower-bath it is immediately laid in ice water to keep the flesh firm. Then have the shad split down the back, and cut each half of the fish into four pieces. Wash quickly and wipe dry. Roll in beaten egg and cracker crumbs, lay the pieces, side by side, on a platter and set in the ice-box for two hours. Fry to a golden brown in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat. Drain all the grease off in a colander; arrange the fish in neat order on a folded napkin laid in the bottom of a fish platter. Garnish with slices of lemon and sprigs of parsley. Serve Bechamel sauce with the fish.

Shad croquettes

Flake the remains of yesterday’s fish into bits with a silver fork. There should be about a cupful of the picked fish. Cook together a tablespoonful of flour and one of butter and pour upon them a cup of milk. Stir to a thick sauce; pour this gradually upon the beaten yolks of two eggs, mix well, add the flaked fish, season to taste, and turn upon a platter to cool and stiffen. When the mixture is cold and firm form it into small croquettes and roll these, first in cracker dust, then in beaten egg, and once again in cracker dust. Set aside in a cool place for two hours, and fry in deep boiling cottolene or other fat brought slowly to the boil. Serve with sliced lemon.

Scalloped shad

Pick cold shad into bits, removing skin and bones. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter into a frying-pan and fry a sliced onion in this. Remove the onion, stir in a tablespoonful of browned flour, and, when this is blended with the butter, pour upon it slowly a cup of clear beef-stock. Stir to a smooth sauce, season with pepper and salt, a very little kitchen bouquet, and a half-cup of tomato liquor. When smooth and as thick as cream, add the fish, stir and toss for a moment and remove from the fire. Turn into scallop shells, sprinkle with crumbs and bake, covered, for twenty minutes; then uncover and brown.

Broiled shad roes

Parboil the roes in salted water as soon as they are taken from the fish. Cook ten minutes and leave in ice water until cold and firm. “Marinade” them in bath of lemon juice and salad oil for one hour. Wipe lightly and broil to a nice brown, turning several times. Pass with lemon sauce.

Fried shad roes

Parboil as directed, let them get chilled in ice water, wipe dry, roll in beaten egg and salted cracker crumbs and fry in deep hot cottolene or other fat heated gradually to the boiling point before the roes go in.

Scallops of shad roes

Parboil and blanch. When perfectly cold break up and pass through a colander or vegetable press. Season with lemon juice, kitchen bouquet, paprika and salt. Have ready a cup of rich drawn butter. Stir the roes into it, beat up well, pour into scallop shells or pâté-pans, sift fine crumbs over the top and bake quickly upon the upper grating of the oven.

Shad roe croquettes

Proceed as with the scallops, except that you make the drawn butter rather thicker, and add a well-beaten egg, together with a tablespoonful of fine crumbs, to give the croquettes consistency. Let the mixture get perfectly cold; mold into croquettes, roll in egg and cracker crumbs and leave on the ice over night. In the morning renew the crumbs and fry in deep hissing cottolene or other fat which has been brought gradually to the boil.

Fried smelts with lemon sauce

Clean, wash and dry the smelts. Roll in salted and peppered flour, and leave in a cold place for an hour to get firm. Fry in deep cottolene or other fat to a light brown, laying each in a hot colander as you take it from the pan, to drain off the grease. Serve in a hot dish. A pretty way of serving them is to fringe several thicknesses of white tissue paper at both ends, and lay in the bottom of the dish, the fringe showing beyond the heap of fish. Serve with—

Lemon sauce

Heat (not melt) three tablespoonfuls of butter until you can beat it to a cream. Whip into it the strained juice of one large or two small lemons, with a heaping tablespoonful of finely-minced parsley. It should be like a light-green cream when done. Fill with this mixture the halves of lemons, from which all the pulp and inner skin have been scraped, and garnish the dish of smelts with them, serving one of the “cups” with each portion of fish.

Fried trout

Clean, wipe inside and out, pepper and salt; roll in egg and cracker crumbs and fry in deep, hot cottolene or other fat, always recollecting to heat this gradually to boiling point before the fish go in.

Or, having cleaned and dried them, roll in salted and peppered meal; then fry.

Fried perch and other pan-fish

Cook as directed in last recipe. It is always well to have the fish on ice for an hour or more after they are egged and breaded, or rolled in meal.

Fish cutlets

Mince cold boiled or baked salmon, haddock, cod, or any other firm-fleshed fish. Season to taste and mix well with a little rich drawn butter, made quite thick with corn starch. Spread upon a broad platter, and, when stiff, cut into the desired shape with a tin “form.” Roll in fine crumbs, then in egg and in cracker crumbs again; leave on the ice to get firm, and fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat which has been heated slowly.

Lobster and crab cutlets

Are made in the same way.

Salmon steaks

Have the steaks cut nearly an inch thick. Wipe with a damp cloth and lay in salad oil for an hour. Drain and put upon a gridiron over a clear fire. Broil slowly, rubbing with butter from time to time. They will take at least twenty minutes to cook, and must be watched carefully that they do not scorch. When done, put upon each steak a generous lump of butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Salmon loaf

Flake cold boiled salmon and moisten it with a gill of cream, a half-gill of milk and two beaten eggs. Stir in a handful of fine crumbs, the juice of half a lemon, a tablespoonful of butter, salt and pepper to taste, and a tablespoonful of minced parsley. Mix thoroughly, turn into a greased pudding-dish, and bake in a steady oven for about three-quarters of an hour, then turn out upon a hot platter. Serve with a white sauce. You may also boil this in a covered mold.

Salmon croquettes

With a silver fork flake the contents of a can of salmon, or two pounds of fresh salmon, into bits—removing all pieces of skin and bone—and season to taste with salt, pepper and a few drops of lemon juice. Cook together a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour, and when they bubble pour upon them a cup of milk. Stir to a smooth, white sauce, add slowly a raw egg, then turn in the salmon mixed with two tablespoonfuls of fine crumbs. When the salmon is heated remove from the fire and set aside to cool. When cold, form into croquettes, roll these in beaten egg and cracker crumbs and set in the ice-box for an hour before frying in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat, which has been heated gradually.

Scalloped salmon

With a silver fork pick into bits the contents of a can of salmon, rejecting all particles of skin and bone. Make a sauce of a half-pint of milk, thickened with a white roux, and turn the salmon into this. Stir and toss over the fire until smoking-hot; season to taste, put into a greased pudding-dish. Strew thickly with crumbs, dot with bits of butter and bake for twenty minutes.

Broiled haddock

Haddock is not popular among “good livers” in the United States. For some reason it is ranked as a second-hand and plebeian fish. Yet it can be made good although cheap.

Clean, wash and wipe well, and gash the back with a sharp knife. Then “marinade” as you would his patrician brethren: i. e., cover him with salad oil and vinegar, or lemon juice, and let him lie in the bath for an hour. Wipe and broil, turning when half done. Transfer to a hot dish, anoint with butter, lemon and chopped parsley, and send to table.

Haddock fillets

Two pounds of what the cooks call “the thick of the fish” will make four fillets, about four inches long by two wide. Skin each piece with a sharp knife; trim into shape and leave in a marinade of oil and vinegar with a tablespoonful of minced chives, or, if you have none, a tablespoonful of onion juice. Let the fillets lie there for an hour. Then drain well, roll in a good batter, afterward in fine crumbs, and fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat. Drain upon hot tissue paper, and send to table very hot. Send around tomato sauce with it.

Halibut fillets

May be cooked in the same way.

Broiled halibut steak

Rub well with salad oil and lemon juice on both sides, wipe, and broil over a clear fire, turning three times. Pepper and salt, lay upon a hot dish and butter well. Send Bearnaise sauce around with it. (See Sauces.)

Fried halibut steaks

Marinade for an hour; drain, roll in salted flour, then in beaten egg, lastly in salted and peppered crumbs. Leave on ice for an hour, and fry in clarified dripping, or in cottolene or other fat.

Fried pickerel with cream sauce

Clean, wash and wipe dry. Roll in white cornmeal or in flour, and lay aside in a cold place while you fry slices of fat salt pork quickly almost to a crisp. Strain the fat and return to the pan; lay in the fish and brown, turning once. When done, remove to a heated, covered dish and keep hot over boiling water. To the fat left in the pan add a tablespoonful of butter and a little boiling water; boil up and stir in a tablespoonful of flour. When it begins to bubble add four tablespoonfuls of cream with a tiny pinch of soda. Stir until smoking-hot, and strain over the fish.

Fried catfish

Skin and clean; lay the fish in very cold water for a few minutes, then wipe them dry. Dredge thoroughly with flour, or roll them first in beaten egg, then in cracker crumbs, and fry to a delicate brown.

Fried frogs’ legs

Have them carefully skinned, wash well, wipe perfectly dry, roll in cracker or bread crumbs, dip in well-beaten egg, then roll again in the crumbs and fry in butter to a golden brown.

Fricassee of frogs’ legs

Skin and wash well, drain; lay in boiling water for five minutes. Put over the fire in enough warm milk to cover them and simmer until tender. Then drain, and lay in a hot dish, buttering well. In another saucepan make drawn butter, using milk instead of water; season with salt, paprika and minced parsley, with a dash of lemon juice; remove from the fire and stir in two well-beaten eggs. Cook one minute, stirring all the time, and take from the range. Pour over the frogs’ legs, cover, and set over hot water for a few minutes before serving. They will be found delicious.

Stewed frogs’ legs

Skin and lay in a marinade of lemon juice and salad oil, with a dash of onion juice or of minced chives, for one hour. Heat two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan, add a teaspoonful of minced onion, one minced tomato and one green pepper chopped fine. Cook for five minutes. Add the frogs’ legs, cover closely and cook ten minutes. Add a little browned flour and cook until tender. Season and serve.

Clams on toast

Chop a dozen clams and boil them for five minutes in their liquor; drain, and add to them two tablespoonfuls of fine crumbs, a tablespoonful of butter, salt and pepper to taste, and a gill of milk in which a heaping teaspoonful of cornstarch has been dissolved. Stir constantly over the fire until the mixture boils, then add a gill of cream; stir for a moment longer and pour upon the toast.

Deviled clams

Slice an onion and fry it to a light brown in a large spoonful of butter. Strain out the onion and put the hot butter back upon the fire. Chop two large (peeled) tomatoes fine, season with salt, half a teaspoonful of sugar, a good dash of paprika and the same of nutmeg. Stir into the hissing butter; stir for three minutes, and add a teaspoonful of butter rolled in half as much flour. Have ready the clams, drained and chopped fine, and mix them with the butter and tomatoes. Fill buttered scallop-shells, or clam-shells, or a buttered pudding-dish with the mixture; sift fine-crushed cracker over all, dropping tiny dabs of butter on top, and cook until delicately browned.

Fried clams

Drain the clams and dry them by laying them on a soft napkin. Season with a dust of paprika. Beat two eggs light in a soup-plate and have ready in another deep plate an abundance of cracker crumbs. Dip each clam in the egg, and then in the crumbs, until thoroughly coated. Lay side by side on a large platter and set in a cold place for an hour. Fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat to a golden brown, drain in a colander, then transfer to a hot platter. Garnish with slices of lemon and sprigs of parsley.

Clam scallop

Drain the liquor from two cupfuls of soft clams and set aside while you chop the clams fine. Moisten two cupfuls of cracker crumbs with equal parts of clam liquor and milk, season with paprika and a tablespoonful of melted butter, and lastly, add three beaten eggs, and the chopped clams. Mix thoroughly, and turn into a greased pudding-dish. Bake until brown and serve from the dish in which the scallop was cooked.

Clam fritters

Make a batter of a pint of flour sifted twice with an even teaspoonful of baking-powder and half as much salt; one cup of milk, half a cup of clam liquor and two well-beaten eggs. Chop two dozen soft clams fine; season with salt and pepper, add to the batter, and drop by the tablespoonful into deep, boiling cottolene or other fat which has been heated slowly. They are made more digestible and, to my taste, more palatable by cooking the batter, as you do griddle-cakes, upon a soapstone griddle.

Fried scallops

Parboil in hot salted water for five minutes; drain and set them upon ice to get cold and firm. Roll them in salted flour, next in beaten egg, then in fine crumbs. Set on ice for half an hour and fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat, which has been gradually heated to the boil.

Curried scallops

Stew the scallops in just enough oyster liquor to cover them. (Your fish merchant will give you all the oyster liquor you want and be glad to get rid of it.) Bring gradually to the boil, after which cook two minutes. Have ready in another vessel a roux made by stirring into a great spoonful of hissing hot butter a tablespoonful of white flour and a teaspoonful of curry powder. Add to these, when smooth and all a-bubble, the hot liquor from the scallops, a little at a time, keeping the spoon busy until all is in. Lastly, put in the scallops; boil one minute and serve. Garnish with rice croquettes, serving these instead of plain boiled rice. Send around sliced lemons with this dish. The lovers of scallops will enjoy it.

Soft-shelled crabs

Remove the fringe, or loose shell, from each side of the crab, and the sandbag; then cut off the eyes. Wash the crabs well, dry and sprinkle with salt and pepper and roll in flour. Fry in butter, turning frequently. When nicely browned they are done.

Creamed codfish

Flake cold boiled cod into bits with a silver fork. Cook together a tablespoonful of flour and one of butter, and pour upon them a cup of milk. Season to taste and, when smooth, stir in the flaked fish. Stir and toss until very hot, add salt and pepper and serve.

Fish-balls

If salt cod be used, shred it finely and soak six hours. Boil half an hour and let it cool. Mash potatoes to a cream; allow half as much potato as you have fish. Mix and heat by setting in a pan of boiling water over the fire, stirring frequently. When hot, beat in an egg, whip the mixture smooth; let the paste get cold, make into cakes or balls, roll in flour and set on ice. Of course, this should be done over night. In the morning fry in deep boiling beef dripping, clarified, or in cottolene or other fat. Cold fresh cod makes delicious “balls.” Proceed as with the salt, leaving out the soaking, and salting to taste.

Boiled salt mackerel

Wash and go all over the fish with a stiff whisk to dislodge salt crystals. Put on to soak in warm water, exchanging this three hours later for warmer, and leave all night. In the morning cover with hot water and set at the side of the range. Half an hour before breakfast drain and put into boiling water to which a tablespoonful of vinegar has been added, and boil gently for twenty-five minutes. Drain and lay upon a hot dish. Cover with a white sauce into which a finely-chopped boiled egg has been stirred, and serve. You may substitute tomato sauce for white, if you like. It is very nice when milk is used instead of water in boiling it.

Broiled salt mackerel

Soak and proceed as in the last recipe. Early in the morning take the fish from the hot water, cover with ice-cold water for five minutes; wipe dry, “marinade” in olive oil and lemon juice for half an hour, drain and broil. Serve with sauce tartare.

Fried eels

Skin, clean well, taking especial heed of the fat, which must be removed to the last bit. Cut into short pieces, marinade in salad oil and vinegar for an hour; roll, first in salted flour, then in beaten egg, then in rolled cracker, and fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat. Drain, dish and garnish with parsley and lemon.

Stewed eels

Skin and clean; cut into short lengths, lay in cold water for half an hour; then put over the fire in cold water, just enough to cover them, and cook slowly for half an hour, or more, according to their size. A large eel may require an hour to make it tender. Turn off the water, cover the eels with a good white sauce seasoned with paprika, onion juice, salt and minced parsley; simmer five minutes and serve.

Roe herring (smoked)

Soak over night when you have washed it well. In the morning lay in hot water for half an hour, then in ice-cold water for ten minutes, wipe dry and grill on a gridiron over a clear fire. It is most appetizing. Pass corn bread with it.

Finnan haddie

Wash the fish thoroughly, leave in cold water for three-quarters of an hour, then lay in scalding water for five minutes. Wipe very dry, rub butter and lemon juice well into the fiber of the fish and broil over a clear fire for fifteen minutes. Serve with a hot butter sauce, or with sauce tartare.

Broiled smoked salmon

Wash a piece of smoked salmon in several waters, and soak it for an hour. Cover with lukewarm water in a saucepan and simmer for twenty minutes. Drain and wipe very dry, then broil on a buttered gridiron until browned on both sides. Transfer to a hot dish, rub with butter, sprinkle lightly with pepper and minced parsley, garnish with sliced lemon, and serve.

Fried smoked salmon

Wash, soak and parboil the salmon as in the former recipe. Wipe very dry, roll in egg and cracker dust, and set in a cold place for an hour before frying in hot salad oil or in cottolene or other fat. Serve with sauce tartare.

FAMILIAR TALK

WHERE WE EAT

“We eat to live; we do not live to eat,” is a time-stained saying. It is almost invariably uttered complacently, and seldom in absolute sincerity. There is something wrong, physically, with the man who “does not care what he eats.” There is a twist in the moral make-up of the woman who finds catering for the appetites of those she loves “a wretched bore, don’t you know?”

Next in importance to the “house-place” in the estimation of the wise and tender mother of the home comes the dining-room where, three times a day, she has her brood under the wings of her comforting, provident and nourishing love. Whatever may be said as to the merits of the “food products” that fly at the masthead of the company the motto—“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are”—there is a potent grain of truth in the legend.

So much of a man’s temper and morals during the day depends upon what he has had for breakfast that the mother may well give serious thought to the composition of the meal. So much depends upon where and how he eats his breakfast, that the wonder grows in the philosophic mind that the eating-room and the appurtenances thereof are a third-rate consideration with so many otherwise excellent managers.

The housemother who can let sunshine into the morning meeting-place of the family scores an important point in favor of the success of her pious scheme. Since this can not always be, her aim should be to simulate the blessed sunbeams as far as she can. Walls of pale buff, the flash of a gilt frame here, and a bit of bright drapery there; yellow silk sash curtains, and, on the sideboard, the glitter of silver and glass will go far to relieve the depressing influence of an apartment where the sun never falls.

Thanks to the ingenious florist whose name is preserved in the “Wardian case,” it is quite possible to have a window-garden in the dining-room on the shady side of the house. A stanch framework of wood, filled in with glass on the sides and on the hinged top, with a zinc-lined bottom on which are spread first a layer of broken flower-pots or other crockery, mixed with charcoal, and on this a stratum, two inches deep, of garden mold, supply the foundation for the undertaking.

Stock with ferns, tradescantia, English and German ivy, fill the spaces between the roots with moss, water well, and close. Your gardening is done for the season, except that, once a day—say while you are at breakfast—the lid is raised a little way to admit a supply of air, and once in a fortnight it would be well to water the plants. Shield from the sun, which, striking through the closed glass, would scald the succulent greenery that will soon fill the case. Hang the canary’s cage above it for an added touch of cheer.

Always have flowers upon the family table. A pot of ivy, a geranium, a fern borrowed from some other room at meal times, will serve the desired end if you can not afford cut flowers in winter. If you have no window plants, manage to get a vase of evergreen sprays—something to lift the gracious ceremonial of eating together above the sordid commonplace. If you “eat to live,” let that living be comely and pleasant.

There is no excuse nowadays for setting a table with coarse, thick stoneware, even when there is no “company” (hateful phrase!) present. Graceful designs may be had in ware so cheap as to be within the reach of any woman who can spread a table of her own.

In the matter of napery, modern fashion comes benevolently to the help of the poor in purse. Have the top of your table polished with a mixture of raw linseed oil and turpentine—three parts of oil, one of turpentine—rubbed in long and well. Then set for breakfast and for luncheon with a linen square—embroidered or simply hemstitched—laid diagonally to the table corners, in the middle, with doilies of the same under the plates; a carving-cloth before the master of the house, and a tray-cloth before the mistress. The effect is pleasing and decorative, the more agreeable to the housewifely eye because the weekly wash is materially lessened thereby.

If your table has not a polished top, you would better have for breakfast and luncheon one of the pretty colored lunch-cloths with napkins to match, which come in divers patterns and at varying prices.

If your china-closets are insufficient to hold all your china, and especially if the walls of the room are ungracefully bare, run a shelf a foot wide near the ceiling and set in graceful array upon it some of your pretty and odd pieces. The device elevates them to the dignity of a bric-a-brac, relieves the burdened closet shelves and produces a frieze-like effect that will further detract from the business-like look of the apartment.

Tax your ingenuity in every way to make the place tempting to eye and to thought, as well as to appetite. A place where one is disposed to linger over one’s meals for social converse and social enjoyment, instead of bolting food in hungry silence, preparatory to bolting from the place he calls “home,” through custom and courtesy, to return not until the approach of the next feeding time.

Since the dining-room chairs are higher than those in the sitting-room and parlor, women of medium height sit with their feet barely touching the floor, and short women dangle their toes helplessly and painfully, the weight of the lower limbs depending from the weary spine.

Provide for each of the shorter sex a footstool or hassock, and reap your reward in the shallowed lines in brow and cheek, the happier light in the eyes, the cheerful ring in the voice.

BREAKFAST MEATS

BREAKFAST BACON

Mrs. Mary J. Lincoln—than whom there is not a more trustworthy authority upon everything pertaining to cookery—says in a sprightly chapter upon breakfast bacon:

“It has been offered me frequently in thick slices, swimming in grease, browned almost to blackness, and salt as the briny waves. You will seldom find a market-man who will take the time and pains to slice it as thin as it should be, even though they are supposed to have knives especially adapted for thin slicing. For that reason I prefer always to buy it by the strip, and slice it as needed.

“With a strong, sharp knife, begin at one end, trim off the outside strip of lean, the smoked edges and the rind, down about three or four inches; then shave off in thinnest possible slices, as thin as can be cut, and have them whole. When you come to the rind, trim off more of it if more slices are needed. Some prefer to turn the strip over and slice from the lower side down to the rind, but not dividing from the rind until sufficient is sliced. But whichever way you do it, keep the strip entire—that is, do not cut off three inches, or half a pound, and then trim and slice that amount, for the last slice will be quite difficult to hold firmly enough to slice uniformly.

“It can be cut thin much easier if very cold. By wrapping it securely in thick brown paper and changing the paper frequently, it may be kept in the refrigerator without affecting the other food.

“Have a smooth frying-pan hot, and everything else ready. Lay in the bacon and turn it frequently as it changes to the transparent stage, moving it about so all portions will cook equally. The heat should be sufficient to cook it quickly, but not to brown it. As soon as it loses the transparent appearance and begins to crisp, draw it from the liquid fat toward the edge, and you will soon tell by the way it dries off and the sound whether it is cooked enough to be crisp.

“Tilt the pan so the fat will run down away from the bacon, and let it drain thoroughly in the pan. By watching and turning it carefully, every piece will be of a uniform light and color, more or less curly, crisp as a Saratoga potato, and so dry and free from grease that it might be picked up with gloved fingers and leave no stain.

“It is less likely to brown when a little of the fat from a previous frying, or a bit of lard, is put in the pan first, as this keeps the bacon from sticking to the pan.”

I seldom borrow a recipe, for two reasons: First, because I have a few old-fashioned prejudices as to the rights of proprietorship in such products; secondly, because, to be frank, I seldom find one upon which I think I could not improve in the matter of simplicity and directness. I could not write out more clearly my ideas on the subject of cutting and cooking breakfast bacon than my distinguished fellow-laborer has expressed them. I hereby grant her permission to honor me by abstracting the same number of words from any of my printed pages.

Bacon and apples

This is a favorite southern dish, and good enough to be transplanted.

Slice bacon thin and fry it crisp. Transfer to a platter and keep it hot while you fry thick slices of unpeeled sweet apples in the bacon fat. When these are tender, drain and put in the center of a hot platter. Lay the fried bacon about the edge of the dish, sprinkle sugar over the apples, and serve.

Bacon and polenta

Wet a cupful of fine Indian meal with two cupfuls of cold water and stir it into a quart of boiling water. Add a teaspoonful of salt, beat up hard, and let it cook steadily for two hours, stirring up often to prevent lumping. Should it thicken too much, add boiling water.

When done, pour out into a broad platter and set aside until perfectly cold and stiff. If you are to have it for breakfast, cook it over night. Cut in squares, triangles or rounds, roll in raw meal (salted), and fry in plenty of boiling dripping or cottolene or other fat to a delicate brown. As each piece is done, transfer to a hot colander to drain. Serve in the center of a hot dish, with thin slices of fried bacon laid about it.

A pretty way of varying a plain but excellent dish is to pour the hot polenta into fancy molds wet with cold water, leaving it there until you are ready to cook it, when turn out and fry.

Bacon and sweet peppers

Cut the stem ends from green sweet peppers, handling very cautiously, lest the seeds should touch the walls of the peppers and make them “hot.” With a small sharp knife extract core and seeds and throw them away. Cut the peppers into rings, lay in ice-cold water slightly salted for half an hour. Fry sliced bacon in a clean pan, take up and keep hot. Dry the peppers by patting between two clean cloths and fry until clear and tender in the fat left in the pan. Arrange the peppers in the center of a hot dish, the bacon around them.

Barbecued ham

Fry slices of cold boiled ham on both sides. Transfer to a hot dish. Cook together in a frying-pan four tablespoonfuls of vinegar, a teaspoonful of granulated sugar, a teaspoonful of French mustard, and a dash of paprika. Stir until very hot and pour over the fried ham. If raw ham be used, cook for fifteen minutes in a frying-pan in boiling water to which has been added a tablespoonful of vinegar; lay in cold water for ten minutes, wipe dry and fry as directed.

Home-made sausages

Grind in a sausage-mill or meat-chopper six pounds of lean, fresh pork and three pounds of fat. Mix with this twelve teaspoonfuls of powdered sage, six, each, of black pepper and of salt, two teaspoonfuls, each, of ground cloves and of mace, and one nutmeg, grated. When the seasoning is well mixed with the meat, pack all down in stone jars and pour melted cottolene or other fat on top to exclude the air, or put into long bags of stout muslin. Dip these in melted grease and hang in the cellar.

They may be made in small quantities and used at once, and are much better than those we buy in market or shop.

Sausages and apples

Lay the sausages (“bulk sausage meat” is best) in a frying-pan, cover with hot water and bring quickly to a fast boil. At the end of five minutes pour off the water and fry on both sides, turning twice. Lift them, drain over the pan, and lay in a hot colander in the open oven, while you fry sliced and cored apples in the fat that ran from the sausages in frying.

If you use link sausage, prick each before boiling.

“Frankfurters”

Cover with boiling water and boil slowly until they rise to the surface of the water. Drain and rub over with a mixture of butter, lemon juice and made mustard.

Broiled pork chops

Are too heavy as breakfast food for any stomach save that of a hod-carrier or ditcher. But people will eat them in the “killing” season, and should have them properly cooked.

Trim away the fat and the skin from the small end; broil over clear coals, and thoroughly, for fear of trichinæ. Pepper and salt to taste. Send around tomato catsup with them.

Cutlets and spare-ribs are cooked in like manner.

Curried pork cutlets

Broil as in foregoing recipe and keep hot (covered) over boiling water. Heat a tablespoonful of butter in a frying-pan, and as soon as it hisses fry in it a tablespoonful of minced onion. When the onion has browned, strain it from the fat, return the latter to the pan, and pour in a cupful of boiling water, with half a cupful of apple sauce. Stir while it simmers for ten minutes. Cook two minutes, and pour over the chops. Leave covered in the oven for five minutes and serve.

TRIPE

A much-maligned article, meet for good men’s tables. It is despised and set at naught by people who should know better, because it is rarely cooked daintily. At its proper estate under the hands of a cook who recognizes its real worth it is said to be both nourishing and digestible. It is certainly palatable, if tender and properly prepared. Buy from your butcher the prepared tripe—that is, tripe which has been thoroughly cleaned and is ready for boiling. No matter how you intend to cook it, boil it first.

Boiled tripe

Lay the tripe in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Set at the side of the range, where it will come slowly to a boil, and simmer steadily for at least four hours. Drain, and set in a cool place until wanted.

Stewed tripe

Cook as in the preceding recipe, but cut the tripe in half-inch squares. At the end of four hours drain off all the water except a gill; add to this a cup of stewed and strained tomatoes, a dash of onion juice, salt to taste and a pinch of paprika. Rub together a heaping teaspoonful, each, of butter and flour, and stir into the tripe mixture. Stir until the sauce is smooth and thick. Some persons like a teaspoonful of Parmesan cheese added to this stew just before it is served.

Fried tripe

Lay cold, boiled tripe in a mixture of equal parts of salad oil and vinegar for two hours. Drain in a colander for fifteen minutes. Dip in egg, then in cracker crumbs, and set in a cold place for several hours. Sauté in a frying-pan to a light brown.

Or you may dip squares of cold boiled tripe into good fritter batter and fry in deep cottolene or other fat. When done, drain free of grease and serve with a sauce made according to the following recipe:

Into the yolk of an egg beat very slowly, a few drops at a time, a half-cup of salad oil. When as thick and smooth as cream add, still slowly, two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, a coffeespoonful of French mustard, a tablespoonful of minced parsley and salt and paprika to taste.

Stewed tripe and oysters

Drop three dozen oysters into their boiling liquor, cook for just one minute, and drain. Cut cold boiled tripe into pieces of uniform size. Put it over the fire with enough water to cover it and simmer for three-quarters of an hour. Drain off the water. Have ready a pint of fresh, scalding milk in a double boiler and drop the tripe into this. Cook for fifteen minutes; add two teaspoonfuls of flour rubbed into the same quantity of butter, and stir until smooth and thick. Season to taste, add the oysters and cook until they are heated through. Last of all, stir in very slowly one beaten egg, and remove at once from the fire.

Stewed tripe and celery

Cut into inch pieces enough celery to make a cupful, and stew tender in salted, boiling water. Drain and set aside while you stew the tripe, first in water, then in milk, as in the recipe for tripe and oysters. Instead of adding the oysters to the thickened milk, stir in the stewed celery, and cook for a minute before serving.

BEEFSTEAK

Rub the hot gridiron with a bit of suet before you lay the steak upon it. The fire should be clear and hot, and yourself at leisure to watch and to turn quickly when the meat begins to drip. There are houses in which a flavor of creosote would seem to be inseparable from a broiled steak. Turn swiftly to keep the smoke from it, and the juices in. Try with the point of a keen knife at the end of ten minutes. If the center of the steak be ruddy, and not purple, and the outside of a fine brown, it is done. Remove to a hot platter, pepper and salt and butter well on both sides. Fit a close cover on the dish and set in the open oven for five minutes to draw the juices to the surface.

Beefsteak with onions

Cook as just directed. Have ready three tablespoonfuls of minced onions, cooked for five minutes in hot butter. They should be tender and clear, but not crisp. After the steak is dished spread the hot onion thickly over it, let it stand in the open oven, with a close cover over it, five minutes.

Chateaubriand steak

Broil a neatly-trimmed tenderloin steak, transfer to a hot dish, butter generously and cover with broiled mushrooms cut into quarters.

Hamburg steaks

Chop a pound of lean beef very fine, and stir into it a beaten egg, a teaspoonful of onion juice, salt and pepper to taste, and a pinch of mace. Mix well, mold into flat cakes, dredge with salted flour, set on the ice for an hour, roll again in flour, and sauté in good dripping or butter.

Chilli con carni (No. 1)

(A Mexican dish.)

Beefsteak (round), one tablespoonful of hot dripping, two large red peppers (dry), two tablespoonfuls of rice, one-half pint of boiling water, salt, onions, flour.

Cut steaks into small pieces. Put into a frying-pan with hot dripping, hot water and rice. Cover closely, and cook steadily until tender. Remove seeds and part of rind from red peppers. Cover with the chilli water, add garlic and thyme. Simmer until cold, then squeeze them in the hand until the water is thick and red. If not thick enough, add a little flour. Season with salt and a little onion if desired. Heat and pour sauce on the meat. Serve very hot.

Chilli con carni (No. 2)

Provide for it two pounds of steak, six red chillies, two cloves, one tablespoonful of flour, a little garlic, thyme, dripping. Seed the chillies and cover with boiling water. Soak until tender and then scrape the pulp into water. Cut steak in small pieces and fry brown in dripping or butter; add flour and brown it. Cover with the chilli water, add garlic and thyme. Simmer until the meat is tender and the gravy of the right consistency.

Beef cakes

Scrape round steak, season to taste with salt and pepper; form with the hands into small, flat cakes and broil over a quick fire.

Stew of beef’s liver

Cut one pound of liver into slices. Chop a quarter of a pound of fat salt pork. Spread a layer of the pork in the bottom of the inside kettle of a double boiler. Cover the pork with slices of liver, sprinkle this with a teaspoonful, each, of minced onion and parsley, add more pork, more liver, onion and parsley until all the ingredients are in the pot. As you do this, sprinkle each layer lightly with pepper. Pour a half-pint of seasoned weak stock over all, cover the pot closely and keep the water in the outer pot at a gentle boil for two hours and a half. Now strain out the meat and keep hot while you return the gravy in the pot to the fire and thicken it with a brown roux. Boil up once and pour the gravy over the liver.

KIDNEYS

First of all, they must be perfectly fresh. If not, they have an odor, and a peculiar “tang” that the unfortunate eater never forgets, and which causes him to feel an aversion for kidneys henceforth and forever. Care should also be exercised in removing all bits of fat and gristle. Last of all, cook the kidneys in a savory way and spare no pains to make them appetizing.

Brown stew of kidneys

Split the kidneys, wash them, drain and cut into small pieces of uniform size. Pour cold water over these and set at the side of the range, where they will come slowly to a boil. Just before the boiling point is reached turn off the hot water, substitute cold, and bring to the boil. Drain the kidneys and keep them hot while you cook together a tablespoonful of browned flour and the same quantity of butter. When these are blended pour upon them a scant teacupful of salted boiling water, and stir until thick and smooth. Now add salt and pepper, a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, the same quantity of Worcestershire sauce, a half-teaspoonful of lemon juice and a tablespoonful of currant jelly. Turn the kidneys into this and stir until very hot.

Savory kidneys

Skin and slice three pairs of lambs’ kidneys. Cut into halves fourteen canned mushrooms. Heat together a cup of bouillon and a half-cup of the liquor from a can of mushrooms. Cook together in a saucepan a tablespoonful, each, of butter and browned flour, and when these bubble pour upon them the bouillon and mushroom liquor. Stir to a thick sauce and add a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce, the same quantity of tomato catsup, a half-teaspoonful of onion juice, salt to taste and a dash of paprika. Now stir in the mushrooms and sliced kidneys. Cook for five minutes after the boil is reached, stirring constantly.

Fried kidneys

Cut three pairs of lambs’ kidneys into halves. Fry eight thin slices of bacon until done; remove from the fire and keep hot while you fry the halved kidneys in the bacon fat. Cook slowly for ten minutes, turning often. Remove the kidneys and keep hot with the bacon while you stir a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce and the same quantity of catsup into the gravy left in the pan.

Put crustless slices of toasted bread on a platter, lay the kidneys on these, pour the gravy over them and dispose the crisp slices of bacon about the edge of the platter.

Broiled kidneys

Cut the kidneys into thick slices. Melt a little butter and stir into it a saltspoonful of mustard and a dash of lemon juice. Dip each slice of kidney in this, roll in cracker dust, and set aside until this coating stiffens. A half-hour will be long enough. Broil on a small gridiron over a clear fire, turning often that the kidneys may not burn. Be sure they are thoroughly done. Serve very hot.

Stewed kidneys

Cut the kidneys in halves, remove all the fat and cover the kidneys with hot water, bring to the boil and drain. Cover with more hot water, again bring to the boil and drain. Repeat this process a third time. Remove them from the liquor, slice thin, and thicken the gravy with browned flour rubbed smooth with two teaspoonfuls of butter. Return the kidneys to the gravy, and when very hot add pepper, salt, two tablespoonfuls of mushrooms, minced, two teaspoonfuls of Worcestershire sauce, a little lemon juice, and two tablespoonfuls of sherry. Serve immediately.

Kidneys sautés

Split the kidneys, trim off all fat and cut each kidney into quarters. Melt three tablespoonfuls of butter in a frying-pan, sprinkle the kidneys with pepper and salt and roll each piece in flour before laying it in the frying-pan. Cook, turning often, until brown. Lay upon a hot platter and add to the grease in the pan a wineglassful of sherry, a quarter of a teaspoonful of onion juice and a tablespoonful of mushroom catsup. Boil this sauce up once, and pour it over the kidneys.

Kidneys à la brochette

Split the kidneys, put over the fire in cold water, and bring to a rapid boil. Drain, wipe and slice each half. Cut the same number of thin slices of bacon the same size and freed from rind and hard lean. Arrange the bacon and kidney slices alternately on small skewers or stout straws, and broil them quickly. Send to table on the skewers.

SWEETBREADS

Said a maid to me once: “Indeed, mem, I niver see sich another as yersel’ for cookin’ wild things and innards!”

The “wild things” to which she referred were quail, woodcock and hare, while the “innards” of which she spoke with such scorn were sweetbreads, kidneys and brains. I may remark, en passant, that the lower classes seldom like viands most prized by the epicure, and the cooking of them, to be done properly, must be performed by the mistress—not the maid—unless the latter be an accomplished cook.

Broiled sweetbreads

Wash a pair of sweetbreads, throw them in boiling salted water, and cook for ten minutes. Drain, and lay in iced water until thoroughly cold. This process is called “blanching” the sweetbreads, and should be done as soon as the perishable dainties are brought home from the butcher’s. Wipe them dry, rub with butter, and broil them over a clear fire. Watch them that they do not scorch. When done, put them on a hot dish, pour a little melted butter over them, sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper and serve.

Fried sweetbreads

Blanch and split each sweetbread in half, lengthwise. Dip in beaten egg, roll in cracker crumbs, and set in a cold place for this coating to harden. At the end of an hour, fry in deep cottolene or other fat brought slowly to a fast boil.

Broiled sweetbreads with mushrooms

Blanch the sweetbreads and cut them in half, lengthwise. Grease a small gridiron, lay the split sweetbreads on this, and broil over a clear fire, turning frequently and watching carefully lest they scorch. When done, lay on rounds of crustless toast, rub thoroughly with butter, salt and pepper to taste, and cover with minced mushrooms fried in butter.

Sweetbread cutlets

Parboil, blanch and mince enough sweetbreads to make two cupfuls. Put into a saucepan with a little white stock and bring to a boil. Thicken with a white roux, and when smooth stir in gradually two beaten egg yolks; then turn the mixture upon a dish to cool and stiffen. Form with floured hands into cutlets, and fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat.

Creamed sweetbreads

Blanch and cut two pairs of sweetbreads into neat dice. Cook together in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls, each, of butter and flour, and pour upon them a pint of cream. Stir to a smooth sauce, add the sweetbreads and cook, stirring steadily until very hot. Season with salt, pepper, and a teaspoonful of minced parsley.

LIVER

It is not known to all housewives, even to those who practise economy from necessity or from choice—sometimes from both—that lamb’s liver, which costs one-fourth as much as calf’s liver, is quite as palatable—some say better than the more expensive viand. The hint may be borne in mind in studying the following recipes.

Liver and bacon

Slice the liver, sprinkle each slice with salt and pepper, and roll in salted flour. Set on ice while you fry twice as many thin strips of bacon as you have slices of liver. Remove the bacon from the pan and lay in the floured liver. Fry slowly until done, turning often. It should cook for at least fifteen minutes. Drain the liver, holding each piece over the pan that the grease may drip off, and arrange on a heated platter, the bacon around it.

Broiled liver en brochette

Cut the bacon thin and the slices of liver into pieces of the same length and width. Run a wooden skewer or stout straw through each piece of liver and, alternately, through a slice of the bacon. Proceed in this way until each slice of bacon is fastened to a slice of liver, and each skewer is full. Lay on a broiler and broil over a clear fire. When done lay the liver and bacon, still skewered together, on a hot platter.

Fried liver

Cut the liver into strips half an inch wide and four inches long. Heat two tablespoonfuls of butter—or dripping—in a frying-pan and fry a sliced onion in it. Strain out the onion. Have ready the liver, peppered and salted and rolled in flour. Put this into the fat and cook, turning once. Take up the liver and keep hot over boiling water. Stir into the fat left in the pan two tablespoonfuls of tomato sauce, one teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, and a heaping teaspoonful of browned flour wet to a paste in cold water. Add salt and paprika to taste, boil up once, put in two tablespoonfuls of sherry and pour over the liver.

There is no nicer way of cooking liver for breakfast.

Mince of liver

Chop, very fine, one pound of calf’s liver. Put one tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan, add the liver with two tablespoonfuls of chopped bacon; cover and cook gently for one hour. When nearly done add a half-teaspoonful of salt, a quarter-teaspoonful of pepper, and two tablespoonfuls of boiling water. Serve on a platter upon buttered toast.

CHICKEN

Fried chicken

Joint a tender chicken as for fricassee. Dip each piece in beaten egg, then roll in salted cracker dust until thoroughly coated. Set aside for an hour before frying in boiling cottolene or other fat to a golden brown. Be sure to fry long enough for the thickest pieces of chicken to be cooked all the way through.

Virginia fried chicken

Prepare the chicken as directed in the last recipe. Fry half a pound of bacon, sliced thin. When crisp, but not burned, strain off the fat and return to the pan. Keep the bacon hot while you fry the chicken (prepared with egg and cracker dust) in the fat, turning twice. Should there not be fat enough, add dripping or cottolene or other fat. When done, arrange upon a hot dish and garnish with the bacon.

Fried chicken with cream gravy

(A Maryland dish.)

After dishing the chicken cooked as in foregoing recipe, strain the fat again, stir in a lump of butter rolled in flour that has been slightly browned, and, when it bubbles, a small cup of hot cream or milk to which a pinch of soda has been added. Stir for two minutes to prevent scorching, add a tablespoonful of minced parsley and pour over the chicken.

Broiled chicken

Use none but undeniably young chickens for broiling. Clean well and split down the back. Lay for an hour in a marinade of salad oil and lemon juice, if there is any doubt on this point.

If certain of your subject, wash over with butter and lay upon a greased and heated gridiron, breast uppermost. The fire should be red and strong. Broil about ten minutes to the pound, lifting when it begins to drip and turning four times to insure thorough cooking. When dished it should be sprinkled with pepper and salt and well buttered.

SOME WAYS OF COOKING COLD CHICKEN

Chicken fritters

Cook a heaping tablespoonful of flour in one tablespoonful of hot butter and one cup of chicken stock, added gradually. Season with celery salt and pepper and pour half of this sauce into a small, shallow, buttered pan. Chop one cupful of cold chicken quite fine, season and spread it evenly over the top of the sauce after it has thickened. Cover with the remainder of the sauce, place on ice, and when very cold and hard cut into rounds or squares. Dip them quickly into batter and fry in deep, hot cottolene or other fat, or in clarified chicken dripping.

These should be prepared over night. The fritters will keep their shape if left a long time before the paste is cut up.

Chicken omelet

Beat four eggs very light, season with salt and pour into a greased frying-pan. Have ready a cupful of minced chicken (heated) and a pint of hot white sauce in which a tablespoonful of minced parsley has been stirred. When the omelet is “set” and ready to be removed from the pan, sprinkle over it the minced chicken, fold it over and transfer to a hot platter. Pour the white sauce about the omelet.

Chicken mince on the half-shell

Cut fine sweet peppers in half lengthwise; remove core and seeds, taking care not to touch the sides of the peppers, and soak for an hour in cold water slightly salted.

Mince fine the cold meat of a chicken and add it to one-fourth as much fine crumbs as you have chicken; moisten with gravy or sauce; fill the peppers, sprinkle fine crumbs over the top, dot with bits of butter, bake half an hour covered, then brown.

Creamed chicken

Make a white roux of two tablespoonfuls of butter and half as much flour; when it bubbles add a cupful of cold chicken cut into dice, a teaspoonful of onion juice, salt and pepper to taste and enough stock to keep all from burning. Cook for ten minutes before stirring in two hard-boiled eggs chopped fine and a cup of rich milk heated with a pinch of soda stirred in.

Imitation terrapin

Proceed as directed in last recipe, adding at the last, the juice of half a lemon and a glass of sherry. Boil up and serve at once.

Turkey croquettes

Mince enough cold roast turkey to make two cupfuls, season with salt, pepper and a half pint of oyster liquor. Put into a saucepan and make scalding hot. Thicken a cupful of hot milk with a tablespoonful of white roux, stir it into the turkey mince, and when the boiling point is reached remove it from the fire. When cold and stiff form into croquettes, crumb these and set on the ice for two hours before frying to a golden brown in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat, or in clarified chicken drippings, if you have it.

Turkey scallops

Mince remnants of cold turkey rather coarsely and mix with it one-third as much stuffing or bread crumbs. Moisten with gravy, oyster liquor or stock, season well; fill scallop shells or pâté pans with the mixture, cover with fine crumbs, with dots of butter over all and bake in a quick oven.

Stewed calf-brains

Heat a great spoonful of butter in the frying-pan and when hot, stir in a tablespoonful of flour. Add a gill of cream with salt and pepper, chopped parsley and a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet. Put a pinch of soda into the cream. When heated, put in the brains, which have been previously blanched and cut into large dice. Cook ten minutes, stirring constantly, and serve hot.

Brain fritters

Blanch the brains by boiling them in salted water for ten minutes. Throw into ice-cold water and leave there for half an hour. When cold, mash to a paste with a wooden spoon. Stir into them two eggs, beaten light, a tablespoonful of melted butter, a half-teaspoonful of salt and enough flour to make a fritter batter. Beat hard for three minutes and drop this mixture into deep, boiling cottolene or other fat. When golden brown in color, drain free of grease in a hot colander. Serve very hot.

Fried brains

Blanch as above directed, leave in cold water until firm, and wipe dry. Slice into pieces of uniform size; pepper and salt, roll in beaten egg, then in fine crumbs. Do this over night. In the morning roll again in egg and cracker-dust; leave on the ice for half an hour and fry quickly in hot cottolene or other fat. Drain free from fat and serve hot. Pass thin slices of crisp toast with them.

Broiled veal chops

Trim neatly and broil over a clear fire, turning several times. Allow ten minutes to the pound. Transfer to a hot dish and cover with a mixture of butter, lemon juice and minced parsley. Cover and set in a hot oven for a few minutes before serving.

Fried veal chops or cutlets

Dip in egg, then in cracker crumbs, and set on ice until morning. Repeat the process, leave on ice for half an hour and fry in deep, hot cottolene or other fat. Drain, dish and send to table with tomato sauce.

Veal cutlets and bacon

Chop raw lean veal fine, season well with celery salt and pepper, and with your hands mold into oval shape. Roll in egg and fine crumbs and leave on ice all night. In the morning fry thin slices of bacon, remove them to a hot dish and fry the cutlets slowly in the fat left in the pan. Drain, arrange on a platter and lay the bacon about them. Pass tomato sauce with them.

Lamb chops

Trim off the fat, broil carefully and arrange them around a mound of mashed potatoes. Garnish with a garland of parsley laid about the base of the mound.

Barbecued lambs’ tongues

Open a can of lambs’ tongues and spread on a platter. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and a little onion juice. Lay in a sauce made by stirring together three tablespoonfuls of salad oil and one of vinegar. Let them stand in this mixture over night. In the morning heat a little butter in the frying-pan, lay the tongues in this and sauté, turning often.

Mince of mutton

Chop the meat fine, removing bits of fat and gristle. Season with salt, pepper and a little onion juice. (It is always better to grate, than to slice onions for seasoning.) Mix with the minced meat one-fifth of its bulk of fine bread crumbs wet with the gravy and work in the beaten yolk of a raw egg to “bind” the mixture. Mold into flat cakes, dip these into a beaten raw egg, then in cracker crumbs and set in a cold place over night. Fry quickly, as you would doughnuts, in deep cottolene or other fat (never in lard) made very hot. Take up as soon as they are done, drain off every drop of fat and lay upon rounds of lightly browned toast in a heated dish. Garnish with sprigs of parsley.

Minced mutton and tomato toast

Make three cups of good well-seasoned tomato sauce, thickened with a heaping teaspoonful of flour rubbed into one of butter. Keep hot in a double boiler set at the side of the range.

Toast slices of bread, butter them, spread on a platter and put a tablespoonful of tomato sauce on each. Into the remainder of the tomato sauce turn two cupfuls of minced mutton, put the saucepan over the fire, stir until the meat is thoroughly heated, season to taste and pour upon the toast.

BREAKFAST GAME

Broiled rabbit

Have your butcher skin and clean the rabbit, remove the head and open it from end to end on the under side. Wipe it inside and out with a damp cloth and lay it open on a greased gridiron. Cut gashes across the back that the heat may penetrate to the thickest part. Broil over a clear fire, turning often. It should cook for about twenty minutes. Transfer to a hot dish, rub with butter, sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve.

Barbecued rabbit

Cook precisely as in the last recipe and keep hot on a platter while you make a sauce of two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, two of melted butter, a dash of salt and a teaspoonful of French mustard. Pour this sauce over the hot rabbit and send to table. This is a delicious and savory dish.

Smothered rabbits

Skin and clean a pair of rabbits; lay in a covered roaster; pour a cup of boiling water over them and cook, covered, until tender. Baste five or six times with a mixture of butter and water mixed with a teaspoonful of onion juice. When the rabbits are done transfer to a platter and keep hot, while you thicken the gravy in the pan with a tablespoonful of browned flour rubbed up with one of butter. Cook one minute, add two teaspoonfuls of vinegar, a saltspoonful of paprika and a generous teaspoonful of made mustard. Boil up once, pour over the rabbits and leave, covered, over hot water five minutes before serving.

Venison steak

Grease your gridiron thoroughly before laying your steak upon it. Broil the steak, turning frequently over the fire of clear coals. As it is better rare, do not cook the venison too long. When done lay the meat upon a hot platter, put upon it several spoonfuls of butter and a little currant jelly, cover and set in the oven long enough to melt the butter and to soften the jelly, then send immediately to the table.

Broiled quails and woodcock

Clean and split down the back. Wash carefully and dry inside and out with a clean cloth. Leave on ice half an hour and broil over a clear hot fire. Dish, pepper and salt, put a piece of butter upon, and lay under each bird a round of delicate toast.

Small birds

Can be cooked in the same way.

Breakfast stew of squirrels

Clean and joint a pair of large gray squirrels; lay in vinegar and water for an hour; wipe dry and brown them slightly in pork fat in which a sliced onion has been fried. Pack the squirrels in a pot, pour over them the fat and onion from the frying-pan and a cup of weak stock. Cover closely and simmer until tender. Season with pepper, celery salt and kitchen bouquet; thicken with browned flour rubbed to a paste with butter, boil up and serve. Stew the squirrels tender overnight, seasoning and thickening the gravy when you warm them up in the morning.

BREAKFAST VEGETABLES

Stewed potatoes

Pare the potatoes and cut into small dice. Cook tender in boiling water, salted. When clear, but not broken, turn off the water and cover with hot milk into which you have stirred a lump of butter rolled in flour. Simmer for ten minutes, add a tablespoonful of finely-minced parsley, boil up once and serve.

Hashed potatoes, browned (No. 1)

Cook as in last recipe, but when ready for the milk turn the stewed potatoes into a buttered pudding dish, cover with the milk, butter and flour and bake, covered, half an hour. Then uncover and brown.

This dish is particularly good if a little onion juice and about a tablespoonful of minced celery be mixed with the potatoes just before they are put into the bake-dish. The dice should be very small.

Hashed potatoes, creamed and browned (No. 2)

Cut a dozen cold boiled potatoes into very small dice. Thicken a cupful of hot milk with a tablespoonful of flour, rubbed into one of butter. Season to taste and stir the potato dice into this sauce. Stir for just a minute; turn into a greased baking-dish and brown in a good oven.

Lyonnaise potatoes

Cut a dozen cold boiled potatoes into dice of uniform size. Shred two onions very thin and put them into a frying-pan with two tablespoonfuls of butter. Fry the onion to a light brown; add the potatoes and fry until delicately colored, stirring frequently. Strew with chopped parsley and serve.

Potato croquettes

Into a pint of hot mashed potatoes stir a tablespoonful of butter, a beaten egg, salt and pepper and enough cream to make the potatoes of the proper consistency to be formed into croquettes. Roll in egg and cracker crumbs and set in the ice-box for an hour before frying in deep cottolene or other fat to a light brown. Drain in a hot colander.

Potato omelet

Beat two cupfuls of mashed potatoes to a cream with milk, salt and pepper and two tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Beat three eggs light and whip them into the potato mixture. Have a buttered frying-pan heated, turn the omelet into this and cook until set; turn out upon a hot platter.

Chopped potatoes sautés

Chop cold boiled potatoes evenly and rather coarsely. Put a tablespoonful of butter or of good dripping into a frying-pan and when hot stir the potato-dice into it, tossing and shaking until they are smoking hot. Pepper and salt and dish.

An equal quantity of sweet potato dice mixed with the white will make the dish still better.

Potatoes fried whole

Boil potatoes of uniform size until just done. Sprinkle with salt. When cold roll in beaten egg and cracker crumbs and set in a cold place for an hour. Fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat, or in dripping to a golden brown.

Fried green peppers

Slice green peppers crosswise and remove the seeds and tough, white membrane. Melt a little butter in the frying-pan and fry the sliced peppers in this. They are an appetizing accompaniment to fried fish.

Stuffed peppers

Mince enough cold chicken to make a cupful and stir into it two tablespoonfuls of minced ham and one of melted butter. Season to taste. Cut the stems from green peppers so that they will stand upright. Cut off the tops of the peppers, remove the seeds and membrane and fill with the minced chicken and ham. Stand the peppers on end in a baking-pan, pour about them a cup of chicken stock and bake half an hour.

German potato pancakes

Six large raw potatoes grated fine; three eggs; a scant teaspoonful of soda; salt to taste. Mix as pancake dough and fry in plenty of cottolene or other fat previously heated gradually to a boil.

Fried eggplant

Cut the eggplant into slices nearly three-quarters of an inch thick, peel these and lay them in a bowl of cold, salted water, putting a plate on them to keep them under the surface of the liquid. At the end of an hour remove the vegetables from the water and wipe dry on a clean cloth. Dip each slice in beaten egg, then in cracker crumbs and lay on a platter. Set in the ice-box for an hour and fry to a golden brown in deep boiling cottolene or other fat. Drain in a colander lined with tissue paper and pile on a folded napkin on a hot platter.

Broiled eggplant

Cut the eggplant in slices half an inch thick, peel and leave for an hour in cold, salted water, as in the preceding recipe. Wipe the slices dry and lay in a bath of five tablespoonfuls of salad oil and two teaspoonfuls of vinegar. At the end of fifteen minutes remove the eggplant, drain in a colander, sprinkle each slice with salt and pepper, lay on a gridiron and broil over a clear fire. Cook for five minutes on one side before turning the broiler. Serve very hot.

Fried ripe tomatoes

Cut firm tomatoes into thick slices, but do not peel them. Sprinkle each slice with salt, dip into a beaten egg and then in fine cracker dust. Set in a cold place for an hour and fry in boiling cottolene or other fat, or in butter.

Broiled ripe tomatoes (No. 1)

Cut large, firm tomatoes into half-inch slices, sprinkle with salt and pepper and dip in fine bread crumbs. Put into a greased broiler and broil over a clear fire until heated thoroughly. Spread with soft butter and serve at once.

Broiled tomatoes (No. 2)

Wash and wipe ripe tomatoes. With a very sharp knife cut them in half and lay, skin side down, upon a buttered broiler. Cook over a clear fire until done; arrange squares of toast on a hot platter and lay the broiled tomatoes on this toast—half a tomato to each slice. Handle carefully that they may not break. Sprinkle with pepper and salt and pour melted butter over all.

Grilled tomatoes

Cut large, firm tomatoes into thick slices. Do not peel. Rub an oyster broiler lightly with butter, lay on it the slices of tomato and broil over a clear fire. Have ready a sauce made by working a teaspoonful, each, of minced parsley and of lemon juice into two tablespoonfuls of butter. Sprinkle the tomatoes with pepper and salt, put the sauce on them, let them stand covered in the open oven or plate-warmer for a couple of minutes, or until the butter is melted, and serve.

Tomatoes and bacon

Prepare tomatoes as in the preceding recipe, omitting the sauce. Keep them hot while you broil or fry thin slices of bacon to a delicate crisp. Arrange the tomatoes on a dish, lay a slice or two of the bacon on each piece of the tomato and serve. This is an excellent breakfast dish.

If for any reason it is not convenient to broil the tomatoes, they may be fried in butter or in olive oil, drained dry and served in the same fashion.

Broiled green tomatoes

Cut the unpeeled tomatoes into half-inch slices and lay in sweet oil for five minutes. Transfer the slices carefully to a fine wire broiler and cook to a delicate brown. When done, sprinkle with salt and pepper, lay on slices of crisp toast and pour a white sauce over and around all.

Fried green tomatoes

Wipe green tomatoes with a damp cloth, cut them into slices half an inch thick, dip in beaten egg and cracker crumbs, set in the ice-chest for half an hour and then fry in butter to a delicate brown. Drain from grease and serve on a hot platter.

Broiled mushrooms

Peel, lay upon a buttered broiler and cook over clear coals, allowing three minutes to each side of the mushrooms. Transfer to thin slices of crustless toast, put a bit of butter and a dash of salt and paprika on each mushroom and set in an oven just long enough to melt the butter.

Fried mushrooms

Melt a great spoonful of butter in an agate frying-pan. Peel the mushrooms and cut off their stems, scraping these last. Lay the mushrooms with their scraped stalks in the frying-pan and cook, turning often, until done. Serve very hot.

Green pepper toast

Slice bread thin, cut off the crusts and toast on both sides to a delicate brown, then butter and keep hot in the oven. Heat a cup of beef stock in the saucepan. Rub together a tablespoonful of butter and the same quantity of browned flour and stir it into the beef stock. When you have a very thick brown sauce add salt to taste and a half cupful of green peppers which have been seeded, freed from the tough white core and minced very fine. Stir to a paste, remove from the fire and spread upon the slices of hot toast. Set in the oven long enough to become very hot and crisp, and serve.

Fried hominy

Warm three cups of cold boiled hominy by setting the vessel containing it in an outer vessel of boiling water. When hot, add a saltspoonful of salt and a tablespoonful of melted butter, beat the hominy smooth and turn into small muffin-tins to get cold and to form. When very stiff, turn the forms over, roll each in beaten egg and cracker dust and set all in a cold place for an hour. Fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat.

Block potatoes

(Contributed)

Cut raw potatoes in cubes. Wipe them dry and fry in deep fat until a light brown. Salt, drain on brown paper and serve hot.

FAMILIAR TALK

WITH MARTHA IN HER KITCHEN

(Time—The cook’s “afternoon out.”)

It is the Christian duty of every housemother in this comfort-loving land to provide a commodious, well-appointed kitchen and laundry, where daily household work is done, and clean, airy, comfortable chambers for workers, where they may take rest in sleep when that work is over. I should fail in observance of the Golden Rule if I were to oblige them to work where I could not work, or to sleep where slumber would be an impossibility to me.

My own preference for a kitchen floor-covering is really good linoleum of conventional design and light in color, therefore cheerful in effect. Many housewives insist upon oiled hardwood or painted floors. Not one cook in twenty takes proper care of an oiled floor, and paint soon wears off. It is economical to buy a prime quality of linoleum, and to lay the same pattern on kitchen, laundry and hall. When it wears out in one room it can be replaced from another. Inlaid linoleum will last for years.

Thick, strong rugs should be laid before the range and by the tables, one under the table at which the servants eat. Linoleum is cold to the feet, and one takes cold readily when over-heated.

I read, last year, that kitchen tables are now, as “a taking novelty,” covered with zinc. Over a score of years ago I covered what may be called the work-tables in my kitchen with this useful metal, tacking it neatly under the edges, lest a loose point might tear hands or clothes. I have kept it up ever since. The tabletops are cleaned easily; they never “take” grease or stain of any kind, and they outwear wood by many years.

Another invaluable invention which I wish I could place in every kitchen is a sheet-iron hood and asbestos curtain, fitted to the top of the recess enclosing the range. It works so easily upon pulleys that a little finger could pull it down. When raised, it is entirely out of the cook’s way; when down, it shuts in the range like an impervious screen. Sliding doors in the center allow one to look into pots and kettles simmering behind it, when oversight is advisable. If left closed, it will lower the temperature of the kitchen twenty degrees within two hours. It cost twenty dollars when new, twelve years ago. If I could not get another, twelve hundred dollars would not buy it.

I long ago discarded the old-fashioned tin and iron cooking utensils in favor of agate-nickel-steel ware, which is as easily washed as crockery bowls and plates; is light and neat in appearance; never rusts, and is altogether satisfactory. All of my kettles have covers, and we use covered roasters—another boon to housewives—for cooking meats. They keep in flavor and juices, and lessen the labor of basting.

Always have a rocking-chair convenient into which the cook can drop for rest between the times of active duty, and one apiece for maids in the laundry. For yourself, follow the rule I laid down imperatively a quarter-century ago in COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD—“Never stand at your work when you can sit.” A chair suited in height to the mixing table will save you many an ache in the feet, back and head.

Do not allow servants to jumble their table crockery, etc., up with pots, saucepans, kettles, colanders and the like. There is no reason why the dresser or closet in which the kitchen tableware is kept should not be as daintily arranged as the dining-room buffet. It should hold no commerce with the pot closet.

The servants’ chambers must be furnished with iron bedsteads, good mattresses, plenty of clean blankets and white spreads. The “honeycomb” spreads are absurdly cheap and easily washed. The rest of the appointments of the dormitories need not be elaborate. If they are neat and comfortable the occupants are more likely to try and make them attractive. When one pins up a crucifix over her bed, her mother’s or sister’s photograph against the wall, or even a colored lithograph of a patent medicine—notice it pleasantly. It means that she is catching the home feeling. Muslin curtains cost next to nothing. Hang them up at her window; give her a pretty cover for her bureau-top and a plain one for her washstand, and plenty of towels. The Golden Rule works well here—where does it not?

I read a little story many, many years ago—before you were born, I think—a slight, commonplace affair, that has furnished two generations of busy housewives with a hard-worked mot de famille.

Excuse the foreign phrase! We have none in English that exactly translates it. “Household word” comes nearer to it than anything else, without quite covering it.

The tale was of a fidgety housekeeper of the sort stigmatized in the rough parlance of the sensible vulgar as “nasty particular.” A friend, calling upon her soon after breakfast, found her fairly beside herself with worry because guests she had expected at noon had telegraphed that they would be with her at eleven o’clock that morning. Distracted Martha “could never in the world be ready for them. There was so much to do that she did not know what to take hold of first. It was enough to drive a woman out of her senses,” etc., etc., etc.

“But what have you to do?”

“Do! Do! Do! Why—everything!”

The visitor drew off her gloves.

“I will stay and help you. Shan’t I get the spare room ready?”

A gesture of disdain.

“As if I would have put that off until today!”

“Can I help about luncheon?”

“Well! I should be ashamed of myself if the cook hadn’t her orders and materials and all before this!”

“Perhaps I could dust the parlors? or polish silver? or—” glancing around the perfectly appointed dining-room, where the luncheon table was already laid—“I might arrange the flowers in the vases?”

It finally transpired that the frantic and “forehanded” hostess could specify but one thing that remained to be done before everything should be in order for the visitors. She had “butter-balls to make” for luncheon. She always kept the paddles in ice-water for hours beforehand.

I was young then and read the little story aloud to my mother—a woman blessed with a keen sense of humor and as keen a perception of the fitness of things. She adopted the phrase on the spot. “Butter-balls to make” became with us the synonym for needless hurry and flurry and worry. When used interrogatively, it was the cabalistic formula that caused a precipitate and a settlement of many a muddy whirl of anxieties, the open sesame to a “chamber the name of which was Peace.”

Half of the perturbations that chase the housemother “clean out of her wits” are as purely imaginary as those that beset the heroine of our wee scrap of a story. That other American Martha who cried out on Monday morning: “Washing to-day! Ironing on Tuesday! Baking on Wednesday! Bless my life, half the week gone and nothing done!” is hardly a caricature of the national housewife. Worry is a whirlwind that throws the weightier matters of the law of life out of plumb, and raises such a dust of minor duties and possible hindrances that the blinded victim can see nothing aright.

One of the fixed principles of the universe is that two objects can not occupy the same place at the same time. Another, which we are more slow to admit, is that no two duties are cast for one and the same instant. The throngs of homely tasks that obscure our toiler’s vision in the anticipation of “another day’s work,” drifting and dancing in the light of the new day—a flood of elusive moths—have really sequence and order. Let her take hold of her astral or inner self, by the shoulders, and hold her steady until she can weigh and classify the importunate atoms. The pretty fairy-tale of the tasks set for Graciosa by her wicked stepmother supplies another and a pat illustration. The poor girl had to sort a roomful of feathers of all colors and sizes. After laboring vainly for hours, she called tearfully for her fairy lover, who, with one stroke of his wand, laid each kind in a separate heap from the rest.

Your wand—and my wand—dear Martha, is the cool, long breath of sober reflection that gives us time to say: “All these things can not be done at once. Some of the less important can be laid over into the convenient season which must fall into the lot of even an American housekeeper. I must keep each in its place. I will”—a strong “will,” a long “will,” and many “wills” altogether—“I will think of but one thing at a time, and do it as if there were nothing else in the world for me to do.”

The discipline of thought and nerves that must attend upon such a moral and mental effort will train lawless impulses and teach concentration of thought as well as the much-vaunted higher mathematics could. Work need not, of necessity, be worry. Industry does not imply haste.

“Count five and twenty, Tattycoram!” entreated Mr. Meagles, when the foundling’s temper was likely to get away from her.

In the same tone of affectionate warning, I pass on my homely test of facts and values—“Butter-balls to make!” First, make sure of what you really have to do, and to do today. Secondly, having screened and sifted the mass, assort the ore before you begin to smelt it—and yourself!

In place of counting five and twenty, accept my formula—“Draw ten deep breaths” before you make up your mind that you have not time for one.

The world is full of fresh air and it owes us all we can take in leisurely and thankfully.

No matter how heavy your burdens, your experience reflects that of hundreds of others. It may be a mean kind of misery that loves company. The knowledge that others are fighting and toiling bravely along the same line with ourselves; that others have conquered the circumstances which oppose us, braces us for renewed effort. What woman has done, woman may do again.

You are far from being hopelessly “mired;” you have what is called “a good fighting chance” for life and usefulness. You have one tremendous advantage, a solid foothold to begin with, in the certainty that you are in the right path.

The confident assurance of this is half the battle. The other half is in doing your work as it comes to your hand. Don’t cultivate “a long reach.” It never pays. You “don’t get ahead one inch.” Perhaps God means for you to move by quarter-inches. He has ten thousand ways of disciplining His children, and so teaching them to make the very best of themselves. It is as certain as that He rules the heavens, that He knows just what sort of training is good for you. Your husband, your children, your home, are your working capital, a loan from Him—your talents, if you like that figure better. They are more than worth all the labor and the worries that fall into your lot.

Husband, children, home, work and worry fill to-day full. Hence the folly, and the danger, and the sin of “the long reach.” The one coming guest whom you should never welcome is to-morrow’s possible troubles. The children are not to be educated today, nor is John ill or dead at the present moment, and the “lonesome” maid does not go until her month is up. The faith that removes mountains wears short-sighted glasses and brings them to bear upon the work in hand.

This is not preaching, but practical philosophy. Try how it will work for a week—then a month—then a year.

Keep your house as well as you can for John, for the babies, for yourself, and let the neighbors run theirs to suit themselves. Comparisons, according to Dogberry, are “odorous.” Comparison of this sort savors of discontent and trouble. Mind your own business and take your business in sections.

“Magnify your office.” You are as important in your kingdom as was Queen Victoria in hers, and have not one worry where she had a thousand.

Dust may be disease in embryo, and should be done away with by the use of all reasonable means. Overwork and worry kill more women in one year than the neglected deposit upon picture cords slays in a century. “Let all things be done decently and in order” is a capital working motto, but reserve the right of private judgment in determining what constitute order and decency. Study what you can leave undone, or what may be laid over for another day with least discomfort to yourself and others.

Spare yourself, and study Slighting (so-called) as a Useful, Life-lengthening Art.

THE FAMILY LUNCHEON

Fifty years ago luncheon expressed the most desultory and haphazard meal possible to enlightened humanity. School children carried lunch-boxes and parcels in the corners of book-bags when they left home after breakfast. Picnic, berrying and nutting parties stowed away bountiful luncheons in baskets and hampers. There were three meals a day, breakfast, dinner and supper, or in New England, tea. Households in which people sat down, even upon “occasions,” to a luncheon set forth in orderly fashion upon a table, to be eaten in courses with knives and forks, were as few as those in which afternoon tea was served.

The change that, by pushing the dinner hour nearer the close of day has made expedient, if not needful, a substantial noon-day meal, has come about naturally and gradually. The down-town of men workers and the up-town of homes have receded from each other until the head of the house can no longer spare time to dine at home at midday. And the stately sequence of soup, fish, meat and sweets is a tedious sham when there are no men to be cooked for. In the country the increasing army of commuters have but two meals at home during the week day. Wives, compassionately reminiscent of the hasty bit and sup that stays their stomachs during a day’s shopping, assume that the respective Johns fare no better. John’s breakfast is a touch-and-go affair. He shall have abundant recompense for that and the wretched sandwich and lukewarm coffee that mocked fainting Nature at the noon spell.

By these and others stages luncheon has become an American institution, and has come to stay. It is, to most women, the pleasantest meal of the day, even when partaken of at home, with none present but “the children” and the grown women of the household. It breaks up the monotony of daily tasks; it is eaten without flurry or hurry, because with little ceremony. “Pick-up” dishes and accidental entrées figure conspicuously in the menu, things for which men, as a rule, care little and their wives and daughters much. Tea and toast, cake and preserves can be enjoyed without fear of bantering comment, and a harmless dish of gossip can be uncovered without provoking severe strictures.

The family luncheon is the best medium I know of for acquiring the valuable French art of concocting entrées out of “left-overs.”

Some Johns have a rooted dislike for “made dishes,”—a prejudice which, I may remark, adds sensibly to the sum of household expenses. It would double them but for the canny housewife’s use of cold cuts and scraps for the midday meal “just for the children and myself.”

Women don’t cook for themselves! But for the saving clause “the children,” our economist would starve herself upon toast and tea. Being a mother she brings forth strengthening soups, savory stews and relishful compositions of fish and vegetables out of most unpromising materials, unconsciously becoming a culinary artist.

The Ladies’ Luncheon, which has grown into one of the most important of modern social functions, will be considered later.

LUNCHEON DISHES

OYSTERS

Fricasseed oysters

Drain the liquor from a quart of oysters and bring to the boiling point. Stir into it two tablespoonfuls of cracker crumbs rolled very fine. Set at the side of the range while you scald a half pint of cream in which you have dissolved a tiny pinch of soda. Meanwhile melt three tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan and cook the oysters in this until their edges “ruffle,” when they must be removed and laid on tiny slices of toast on a hot water dish. Turn the melted butter remaining in the saucepan into the oyster liquor and pour this slowly, stirring all the time, on the hot cream, season with salt and paprika, and pour immediately over the oysters and toast.

Deviled oyster pâtés

Drain the liquor from a quart of oysters. Chop the oysters and mix with them a cup of cracker crumbs, two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and enough oyster liquor to soften the whole. Season with salt, paprika and a few drops of Tabasco sauce, with a teaspoonful of tomato catsup. Butter small pâté-pans, fill these with the mixture, sprinkle cracker crumbs on top, and bake.

Creamed oysters

Drain the liquor from a quart of oysters.

Cook together three tablespoonfuls of butter and two of flour, and when they bubble pour upon them a cupful of oyster liquor and a cupful of rich milk (cream is better), in which you have dropped a bit of soda the size of a pea. Stir until the sauce thickens, then turn into it the oysters. Cook until the oysters are heated through; add, a few drops at a time, the beaten yolks of two eggs, keeping your spoon moving all the time. Do not allow it to cook a minute after the last drop of egg is added.

Broiled oysters (No. 1)

There are several methods of broiling oysters. For all of them a good large oyster is needed. I give the simplest method first.

Dry your oysters on a towel; sprinkle them with salt and a little red pepper and lay them within an oyster-broiler. Turn them so that they may brown on both sides, put them on a hot dish, dress at once with butter, and serve as soon as this has melted.

Broiled oysters (No. 2)

Drain and dry your oysters, sprinkle them with salt and pepper and roll them in bread-crumbs. Broil them over a clear fire, turning them until they are brown. Serve on buttered toast. Put a bit of butter on each oyster and squeeze on it a few drops of lemon juice.

Broiled oysters with brown sauce

Sprinkle large drained oysters with salt and pepper, dip in beaten egg, then roll in cracker-dust, and lay on the ice for an hour before cooking upon an oyster-broiler over a clear fire to a delicate brown. Put on a hot platter and cover with a brown sauce.

Brown sauce for broiled oysters

Cook together a scant tablespoonful, each, of butter and browned flour; pour upon a half pint of cleared consommé; season with salt, pepper, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, a little mushroom catsup and a few drops of kitchen bouquet. Add a dash of lemon juice and serve.

Scalloped oysters

Drain the oysters and dispose in a buttered bake-dish in the following order:

In the bottom have a light layer of crushed cracker crumbs; season with paprika and salt, drop bits of butter upon them and wet with oyster liquor and milk mixed in equal quantities. Now comes a layer of oysters, similarly seasoned, next a layer of crumbs. Go on thus until the dish is full or the materials are used up. The top layer should be crumbs with a double allowance of butter. Cover closely and bake half an hour, then uncover and brown lightly.

Oyster scallops

Prepare as above, but bake in pâté-pans or in shells, covering each with fine crumbs. In tide-water Virginia, notably near Williamsburg, the first capital of the state, large, fluted shells are dug up many feet below the surface, which, when cleaned, make the best possible receptacle for scalloped oysters. All who have eaten fresh oysters, just from York river, cooked in these fossil remains, will agree with me that they are incomparably savory.

Send sliced lemon around with them.

Fried oysters

They must be large, plump and fresh. Drain well; spread upon a clean, soft towel, and cover with another, patting them gently to dry them on both sides. Roll each over and over in salted cracker-crumbs; set on the ice for an hour; dust more crumbs over them, and fry, a few at a time, in boiling hot butter, cottolene or other fats.

Drain, garnish with parsley and serve.

Oysters creamed and baked

Heat a large spoonful of butter in a clean frying-pan, rub in a tablespoonful of flour, and stir to a white roux. Remove to the table. Season with salt and white pepper. Have ready pâté-pans or scallop-shells arranged in a baking-pan; put three or four fine oysters in each, cover with the white sauce and cook in a quick oven about eight minutes, or until the oysters “ruffle.” Serve in the shells. The white sauce should be thick, as the liquor from the oysters will thin it.

Stewed oysters

Drain in a colander one quart of oysters. Put the liquor over the fire in a saucepan, with a good tablespoonful of butter. Add half as much boiling water as you have liquor, pepper and salt to taste, and bring to a boil. As soon as this is reached, put in the drained oysters and cook quickly. When they “ruffle”—in five minutes or thereabouts—add half a cupful of milk heated in another vessel with a tiny bit of soda to prevent curdling, and half a teaspoonful of corn-starch wet with cold milk, stirred in. Pour upon the oysters, cook for one minute and dish.

Most stewed oysters are cooked into insipid toughness.

Oyster stew

Heat the liquor from a quart of oysters to boiling. While it is growing hot put over the fire in another vessel a pint of milk. When this is heated stir into it a tablespoonful of butter rolled in as much flour. Drop the oysters into the hot liquid and let them cook until they ruffle. Pour the milk into the saucepan with the oysters, season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve.

This is the old-fashioned stew and is better than many more modern inventions.

Oysters fried in batter

Make a rather thick batter of one egg, a cupful of milk and about half a cupful of flour, sifted twice, with a scant half teaspoonful of baking-powder and half as much salt. Drain fine oysters, roll each in flour, let them stand half an hour, then dip in the batter and fry in boiling butter, cottolene or other fat. Drain off every drop of grease in a hot colander and serve.

Steamed oysters

Wash shell oysters and arrange, flat side up, in the steamer. Cover closely, and set over water at a hard boil. In twenty-five minutes lift the steamer from the fire. If the shells gape, the oysters are done. Pry off the lower shell, put a bit of butter on each, and send at once to table. Pass salt and pepper and sliced lemon with them. They are delicious if eaten piping hot, preserving the flavor far better than stewed or panned oysters can hold it.

Panned oysters

Fit rounds of buttered toast into the bottom of pâté pans; lay on these as many oysters as the pans will hold, season with salt and pepper, lay a dot of butter upon each panful and set in your covered roaster to cook in a quick oven about ten minutes, or until the oysters “ruffle.” Serve in the pans.

An appetizing luncheon or supper dish.

Creamed panned oysters

Cook as in last recipe, and when the oysters are done add to each pan a large teaspoonful of cream heated to scalding, putting in a tiny pinch of soda to prevent curdling.

Instead of the cream you may make a dish of

Deviled panned oysters

When ready for the table add to each pan a dozen drops of Tabasco sauce, stirred into a saltspoonful of French mustard and the same quantity of lemon juice. Beat together, stir lightly into the oysters with a fork, heat one minute and serve.

Curried oysters

Into two tablespoonfuls of white roux stir a few drops of onion juice and a teaspoonful of curry powder. Add a cupful of scalding oyster liquor, and, when well incorporated, pour over broiled or fried oysters laid upon toast in a chafing-dish. Rice croquettes are nice served with this dish.

Oyster pie or pâtés

Make pastry shells or a pie shell of puff paste, bake, and when cold, fill with a filling made thus: Cook together a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour; pour on them a cup of cream and a gill of oyster liquor and stir to a smooth sauce. Drop in the oysters and cook, stirring steadily until the edges begin to curl; remove from the fire and beat in gradually the yolk of an egg. Pour into the pastry shells and set in the oven until the pastry and contents are very hot.

Oyster cocktails (No. 1)

Into a tablespoonful of tomato catsup stir a half tablespoonful of grated horseradish, a half tablespoonful of Worcestershire sauce, a tablespoonful of lemon juice, a quarter teaspoonful of Tabasco sauce, half a tablespoonful of vinegar and a saltspoonful of salt. Set in the ice for an hour. Into very cold little glasses put five small oysters that have been chilled, and fill the glasses with the cold sauce.

Oyster cocktails (No. 2)

For six of these provide thirty small oysters. Make a sauce by mixing together a tablespoonful, each, of lemon juice and tomato catsup, a teaspoonful of grated horseradish, a pinch, each, of salt and cayenne pepper and six drops of Tabasco sauce. Have all very cold, and the cocktail or claret glasses thoroughly chilled before you put five oysters in each and divide the sauce equally between them. Lay a slice of lemon on top of each cocktail.

Oysters with mushrooms

(Contributed)

Drain about twenty-five oysters, put them into a hot pan with a teaspoonful of butter and toss them until they are plumped and ruffled on both sides. Then place them in a hot dish. To the oyster liquor add the juice of half a pint of chopped mushrooms and enough milk to make a pint. Thicken this with a tablespoonful of flour moistened with a little milk and cook three minutes; stir in the mushrooms and cook two minutes longer; add a half teaspoonful of salt, a half teaspoonful of lemon juice, a teaspoonful of onion juice, the beaten yolks of two eggs and a heaping tablespoonful of butter. Put in the oysters and as soon as the preparation reaches the boiling point turn into a hot dish.

Pigs in blankets

(Contributed)

Take large oysters and allow them to remain in the following dressing: The juice of two lemons, half a teaspoonful of salt and a dash of cayenne pepper. Now wrap each oyster in a thin slice of bacon and fasten with a toothpick, fry in a little butter until the bacon is crisp. Have nicely browned slices of toast and lay the oysters on them. Garnish with parsley and serve.

Baked oysters

(Contributed)

Select nice large oysters. Wash and scrub the shells free from sand. Put them into a baking-pan and bake in a hot oven until the shells open. Carefully remove the upper shell; put a bit of butter on each oyster, sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve in the under shells.

Oysters with macaroni

(Contributed)

Put about four ounces of macaroni in plenty of boiling salted water and cook for twenty minutes. Take out and drain well. Into a buttered baking-dish put a layer of the macaroni, then a layer of oysters, dot with bits of butter, season with pepper and salt; follow this with another layer of macaroni, another of oysters and seasoning, and finish with a layer of macaroni sprinkled thickly with grated cheese. Bake in a moderate oven twenty minutes.

Oysters sautés

Drain the oysters well, season with pepper and salt, roll in fine bread crumbs, and brown in a little clarified butter in a spider. Serve on a hot platter.

Scalloped clams

Select one dozen large clams in the shell and two dozen soft ones. Use care not to injure the shells which are to be used in cooking. Clean the shells well and put two soft clams into each one. Add to each a touch of white pepper and one and a half teaspoonfuls of minced celery. Cut into small dice a few slices of bacon and add four of these to each shell; sprinkle bread crumbs over the top, put a piece of butter on top of each and bake in the oven till brown.

Roast clams

Wash the clams and lay them unopened in a bake-pan, and set on the top of the very hot range. Cook until the shells open wide, then remove the upper shell and transfer the lower—with the clam and juice still in it—to a hot platter. Squeeze upon each clam a few drops of lemon juice and serve in the shells. Pass tomato catsup or chili sauce with them.

Creamed clams

Drain the liquor from a pint of opened clams, and set the clams and liquor on the range in separate double boilers to heat. Cook together a large tablespoonful of butter and the same of flour until they bubble, then pour upon them the heated liquor and cook until smooth and thick. Have ready in another vessel a pint of hot cream, in which a pinch of soda has been dissolved. Pour this gradually upon a beaten egg, and return to the fire for a minute, stirring constantly. Add the chopped and heated clams to the thickened liquor, season with paprika, stir gradually into the hot eggs and cream, and pour upon squares of lightly buttered toast.

Clam pâtés

Drain the liquor from a quart of clams. Cook together a tablespoonful of butter and one of flour, and pour upon them a cup of hot milk (in which a pinch of soda has been dissolved) and a cup of clam liquor. Stew until you have a smooth, thick sauce, and then add the chopped clams. Add a beaten egg, drop by drop, and when well mixed remove from the fire, season and set aside to cool. Line pâté pans with good puff paste, fill with the clam mixture, put pastry over the tops and bake to a light brown. Serve hot.

Deviled clams (No. 1)

Steam in the shell as you have been told how to steam oysters. When they gape, open, saving all the liquor in a bowl. Cut off the dark end of each clam and set aside while you strain the liquor and bring it quickly to a boil. Season with paprika, butter, lemon juice and a few drops of Tabasco sauce; put in the clams and as soon as they are smoking hot, turn into a heated covered dish. Send around buttered bars of graham bread, or strips of buttered toast, or hot crackers, buttered lightly.

Deviled clams (No. 2)

Take two dozen clams from the shells, drain and chop. Scald a cup of rich milk and thicken it with two tablespoonfuls of flour rubbed into one of butter; remove from the fire, add gradually the beaten yolks of three eggs, paprika and celery salt to taste, a few drops of lemon juice and the chopped clams. Wash the clam shells, fill with this mixture, and set in a pan in the oven for ten minutes. Serve very hot.

Lobster à la Newburg

Stir a pinch of baking soda into a pint of cream; put this, the beaten yolks of three eggs, and a wineglassful of sherry in a double boiler and cook, stirring, until thick. Now add a pint of lobster meat, seasoned with salt and cayenne, and stir until smoking hot; then serve.

Lobster timbales

Mix together a cup of cold boiled lobster, minced very fine, eight blanched and chopped almonds, and season with celery salt and white pepper. Stir in a half pint of whipped cream and the whites of four eggs beaten very stiff and work in an ordinary Hollandaise sauce. Turn into timbale molds and bake.

Lobster cutlets

Two cupfuls of minced lobster seasoned with a quarter teaspoonful of salt, a dash of paprika, and one teaspoonful, each, of lemon juice and minced parsley. Moisten with one cup of thick drawn butter and the beaten yolk of one egg. When cool, shape into cutlets; egg and crumb them, let them stand for one hour on ice, then fry in deep, hot butter.

Creamed lobster

Two cups of boiled lobster meat, cut into dice. Season with paprika, salt and lemon juice. Heat a great spoonful of butter in a saucepan and turn in the lobster dice. Toss until smoking hot, add half a cup of cream, heated (with a bit of soda), then beat into it the whipped yolks of three eggs. Stir for one minute, and dish.

Send hot, buttered crackers around with it.

Curry of lobster

Heat a tablespoonful of butter in a frying-pan, and cook in it a tablespoonful of sliced onion. Strain out the onion, return the butter to the pan, and stir to a roux with a level tablespoonful of flour and a teaspoonful of curry powder. Add four tablespoonfuls of cream, heated (not forgetting the pinch of soda); lastly two cupfuls of lobster meat, cut into dice. Stir steadily until very hot, and dish.

Note

All of these preparations of lobster may be made with canned lobster, although they must always be inferior in flavor to those made from the fresh fish. If canned lobster be used, drain off every drop of the liquor and have the meat as dry as possible before it goes into the manufacture of the proposed dish.

Scalloped lobsters

(Contributed)

Cover the bottom of a baking-dish with fine bread-crumbs. On this put a layer of lobster and season with pepper and salt; add another layer of crumbs, another of lobster and so on, until the dish is filled. Moisten with milk, strew with bits of butter and bake about twenty minutes.

Deviled lobster

Two cups of lobster meat, cut into dice. Reserve the coral, rubbing it to a paste with butter and lemon juice. Heat two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan, add the lobster meat highly seasoned with paprika, French mustard, ten drops of Tabasco, or double the quantity of Worcestershire sauce and salt. As soon as it bubbles turn in the coral paste and let it just come to a boil before serving.

Deviled crab

Pick the meat from boiled crabs, taking care not to break the shells. Flake the meat and mix with it a tablespoonful of melted butter, cayenne and salt to taste and a tablespoonful of lemon juice. Return to the shells, sprinkle with bread crumbs and bits of butter, and bake.

Crabs and champignons

Two cupfuls of crab meat, cut into dice, and half a can of champignons (mushrooms), cut into dice of the same size. Make a roux in a frying-pan of two tablespoonfuls of butter and one heaping tablespoonful of flour, stirred until smooth. Mix the crab meat and champignons well together, season with paprika, salt and a dash of onion juice; turn into the smoking roux; cook three minutes; remove from the fire; add quickly three tablespoonfuls of cream, heated, with a pinch of soda; set over the fire for one minute, add a glass of sherry, and serve hot.

Lobsters cooked in this way, substituting the fresh mushrooms for the canned, are delicious.

Crabs en coquille (No. 1)

Two cupfuls of crab meat, cut into neat dice, and set on ice until needed. One heaping tablespoonful of flour and an even tablespoonful of butter. Four tablespoonfuls of cream. Salt, cayenne, ten drops of Tabasco sauce or twice as much Worcestershire. A little boiling water. Pinch of soda in the cream.

Make a roux of butter and flour. Season the crab meat and stir into the roux, thinning with just enough boiling water to make the mixture manageable. When smoking-hot, take from the fire, beat in the hot cream and fill crab shells with the paste, rounding to suit the shape of the shell. Sift fine crumbs, salted and peppered, over each, put bits of butter on top, and brown on the upper grating of the oven.

Crabs en coquille (No. 2)

(A Cuban dish.)

Prepare as directed in foregoing recipe, but mix with the crab meat the pulp of three tomatoes, cut into bits and drained dry, a green pepper, seeded and minced, and four tablespoonfuls of the inside of an eggplant (boiled and cold), cut small; also half a cup of fine bread (not cracker) crumbs. Season with paprika, salt, and a teaspoonful of onion juice. Stir into the roux over the fire, adding a little boiling water if too thick, until very hot, when remove to a table and beat in the whipped yolks of two eggs. Fill your crab shells, sift fine crumbs on top, dot with butter and cook, covered, ten minutes before browning upon the upper grating.

SHRIMPS

The wee shell-fish are comparatively little known in many parts of the United States except as they come in cans. Even in this shape they lend themselves to many pleasing combinations convenient for luncheons and picnics.

Open the cans several hours before they are to be used, turn out the contents into an open bowl, rinse in cold water, drain and set on ice, or in some very cold place.

Buttered shrimps

Heat two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan; add a teaspoonful of flour, and, when bubbling hot, a tablespoonful of tomato sauce, paprika and salt to taste, and a teaspoonful of onion juice. Boil one minute and add a can of shrimps, washed and drained. Stir the mixture four minutes over a brisk fire and serve.

Pass thin slices of buttered brown bread with them.

Shrimps en coquille

Prepare as directed on preceding page, in crabs en coquille, No. 1. They are very good.

Scallop of shrimps and mushrooms

Cook precisely as in recipe on preceding page, for crabs and champignons.

Curried shrimps

Make a roux of one heaping tablespoonful of butter and a little less flour; thin with one small cupful of boiling water; add an even tablespoonful of best curry powder and one teaspoonful of onion juice. Stir for one minute and add a can of shrimps, washed and drained. Cook five minutes and serve.

Shrimps and eggs

(A Cuban dish.)

Make a roux of one large tablespoonful of butter and one of flour; when it bubbles add a teaspoonful of onion juice and twice as much green sweet pepper, minced fine, with salt and a saltspoonful of sugar. Boil up and stir in a can of shrimps, previously washed and drained. Cook for five minutes; remove to the table and mix in gradually, stirring all the time, four eggs which have been beaten just enough to break the yolks. Return to the fire and stir until the eggs begin to “set.”

Maryland terrapin

Boil the terrapin until the skin on the claws is sufficiently soft to rub off at the slightest touch. Take from the shell, and remove every particle of entrails and lungs. Place the meat in a chafing-dish. Add butter, pepper and salt, the quantity of each depending on the quantity of flesh. Let it simmer until the essence and butter reach the consistency of light gravy. Serve hot. If desired, add a little good sherry while eating, but not while cooking. Use no spices, dressing or other ingredients that can detract from the flavor.

SARDINES

The adaptability of the sardine to a variety of preparations that are appetizing and delicious is not generally recognized by the housekeeper. The tiny fish may be used as the foundation of many nice, light dishes, and during the heated months form a pleasing variety upon the heavier lunch or supper dishes composed of meat. It is always well to open a box of sardines an hour or two before the contents are to be used. Drain the fish from the oil in which they are packed, as this is too rich to be digestible, and does not improve the flavor of the fish. In buying sardines, choose the more expensive quality rather than the cheap, so-called sardines, which are often only American minnows packed down in oil.

Baked sardines

Toast crustless slices of graham bread and butter them. Put the drained sardines on a tin plate, squeeze over them a few drops of lemon juice and sprinkle with fine cracker crumbs. Set the plate in the oven and bake the fish for ten minutes. Transfer the sardines to the toast, and keep hot while you make the following sauce:

Strain a half-pint of liquor from a can of tomatoes and put it into a porcelain-lined saucepan to heat. Rub together a teaspoonful of butter and one of flour, stir these into the tomato liquor, and, as the sauce thickens, add a half-teaspoonful of onion juice and a teaspoonful of granulated sugar, salt and pepper to taste. Boil up once and pour over the sardines and toast.

You may, if you like, substitute white bread for brown, and omit the tomato sauce entirely.

Broiled sardines

Drain the sardines free from oil and lay them on a fine oyster-broiler. Broil over a clear fire for five minutes. Butter heated saltine wafers, and lay a sardine on each of these. Squeeze four drops of lemon juice and two drops of onion juice on each fish and send to the table very hot.

Canapés of sardines

Cut thin bread into crescents or triangles. The crescent is the true canapé shape. Toast the bread. Flake sardines fine with a fork; work into them a teaspoonful of melted butter, a teaspoonful of lemon juice, a pinch of salt and four or five drops of Tabasco sauce. Spread the toast first with butter, then with the sardine mixture, place on a tin plate, cover, and set in the oven until very hot.

Grilled sardines

Cut as many strips of bread as you have sardines, making each piece a little longer and broader than the fish. Toast or fry these. Roll your sardines in egg and then in fine cracker crumbs, and fry to a light brown. Lay a sardine on each strip of toast and garnish with lemon and parsley.

Sardine eggs (cold)

Boil six eggs hard and throw into cold water. Remove the shells and cut the eggs in halves, removing the yolks. Pound these yolks to a paste with a tablespoonful of salad oil, and work into this paste eight skinned and minced sardines. Now add a teaspoonful of lemon juice, and a saltspoonful, each, of salt, pepper and mustard. Form into balls, and fit these into the halved whites of the eggs, trimming off the bottoms of the whites so that they will stand on end. Serve garnished with water-cress, and with or without a mayonnaise dressing.

Sardine eggs (hot)

After making out the “eggs” as directed in foregoing recipe, put into a saucepan with a broad bottom and closely fitting lid, and set in a pot of water at a hard boil on the range. Do not let the water get into the inner vessel. In twenty minutes they should be heated through. Transfer to a hot dish and pour over them a hot Bearnaise sauce. (See Sauces.)

Sardines in cups

Cut rounds of stale bread more than half an inch thick. Press a smaller cutter inside of the larger round half way through the bread. Scrape out the crumb from the inner round, leaving sides and bottom whole. Set upon the upper grating of a hot oven until crisped to a light brown. Turn and toast the bottom of the cups; then butter well. Skin and behead eight sardines. Scrape to a smooth pulp and mix with this sauce:

Make a roux of a large tablespoonful of butter and nearly as much flour, thin with a few spoonfuls of boiling water, season with a teaspoonful of anchovy paste and one of Worcestershire sauce; stir in the sardine pulp, and when it begins to bubble fill the buttered bread cups, which should have been kept hot. Send around sliced lemon with them.

Anchovies au lit

Toast thin rounds of bread; butter and cover thickly with the yolks of hard-boiled eggs, run through the vegetable press. Make a hollow in the mass of powdered egg and lay a curled anchovy in the little pit thus formed.

Set in a hot oven for five minutes, and serve.

Anchovy toast

Cut the crust from slices of bread and toast to a light brown. Butter lightly, and spread with anchovy paste. Lay the toast upon a hot platter in the oven while you make a sauce by cooking together a tablespoonful of butter and the same quantity of browned flour, and when they are blended pouring upon them a pint of beef stock. Stir to a smooth, brown sauce, add a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, six stoned and chopped olives, pepper to taste, and a very little salt. Pour this sauce over and around the anchovy toast.

Anchovy croutons

Cut white bread into three-inch triangles, and fry them in butter to a pale brown. Drain, and spread each lightly with anchovy paste, and on this lay a slice of tomato. Dust with salt and pepper and serve cold.

Caviar in saucers

Prepare rounds of bread as directed for “Sardines in Cups,” and keep hot while you make the filling thus:

Two tablespoonfuls of caviar, one teaspoonful of lemon juice, one-fourth teaspoonful of curry powder, and the same of paprika. Put all into a saucepan over the fire and stir until quite hot; then put it into the hot and crisped “saucers.”

Caviar strips

Cut an equal number of slices of brown and of white bread—quite thin—and butter on one side. Trim into neat oblongs and spread the white bread with caviar. Fit a brown strip over each piece thus prepared, press lightly and firmly together, and lay, log-cabin-wise, in a tray lined with a doily.

A curry of salmon

Open a can of salmon two hours before using, and remove all bits of skin and bone. Pour two tablespoonfuls of olive oil into a frying-pan and fry in it a minced onion. When the onion is brown stir into the oil a tablespoonful of flour mixed with a teaspoonful of curry powder, and when these are blended add a large coffee-cupful of boiling water. Season and stir for a moment, and turn the salmon into the mixture. Cook for two minutes and serve. Pass sliced lemon with this dish.

Salmon mayonnaise

Have boiling in a kettle a gallon of salted water to which a gill of vinegar has been added. Lay carefully in this two salmon steaks and let them boil very slowly. Test with a silver fork, and when done, but not at all broken, lift carefully from the water and drain. Set aside until cool, then keep on the ice until wanted. Lay the steaks on a cold platter and pour a very thick mayonnaise over them. Spread this smooth with a knife that the steaks may be covered. Garnish with an abundance of water-cress.

Scallop of salmon

Open a can of salmon several hours before it is needed. Remove all bits of skin and bone, and flake the fish into small pieces. Make a white sauce and stir the salmon into this. Pour into a buttered pudding-dish, cover thickly with bread crumbs and bits of butter, and bake.

Beauregard cod

Boil a pound of cod the day before it is needed and let it get cold. Flake to pieces with a silver fork, removing all bits of skin and bone. Next day heat a pint of fresh milk in a double boiler, thicken this with a teaspoonful of flour rubbed into one of butter, and stir in the flaked fish. Season to taste and cook for five minutes. Turn upon squares of buttered toast. Have ready four hard-boiled eggs, the yolks powdered, the whites cut into rings. Sprinkle the yellow powder over the fish and lay the white rings about the edge of the platter.

Baked smelts with oyster forcemeat

Choose fine, large smelts of uniform size. Clean, wash and wipe, and fill them with a forcemeat made of one part fine crumbs, three parts finely-minced oysters, seasoned with paprika, a little minced parsley, salt and a tablespoonful of melted butter to a cupful of the forcemeat. Sew the fish up with fine thread and long stitches; lay in your covered roaster with a little boiling water under the grating and bake twenty minutes, basting once with butter when nearly done. Serve with lemon sauce.

They make a delicious fish course for luncheon. The threads should be clipped carefully that the fish may not be torn as they are drawn out before serving.

Baked smelts

Clean, wipe, roll in melted butter, then in cracker dust, set on ice to stiffen for an hour, and cook fifteen minutes in your covered roaster. Send sliced lemon around with this dish.

Creamed shad

(Contributed)

Make a white sauce by cooking together a tablespoonful of butter and a heaping one of flour, and, when they are blended, pouring upon them a pint of unskimmed milk. Add a few drops of onion juice, then pour slowly upon the beaten yolks of two eggs. Season with salt, pepper and a teaspoonful of minced parsley. Into this sauce stir a pint of cold, cooked shad that has been freed of bones and flaked very fine. Turn into a greased pudding-dish, sprinkle with crumbs and bake for twenty minutes or until heated through.

A “pick-up” of fish

This is a good dish for Saturday when you are gathering up left-overs to clear decks for the Sunday which is to begin the new week.

A cupful of cold, cooked fish—cod, halibut, salmon or any other firm fish; the same quantity of cold, cooked macaroni, cut into small bits; half a cupful of tomato sauce, one cupful of oyster liquor, which any fish dealer will give you; a heaping tablespoonful of butter and the same of flour, a teaspoonful of onion juice and the same of minced parsley. Salt and paprika to taste.

Heat the butter in a saucepan; stir in the flour, and, when it bubbles, the tomato sauce, the oyster liquor and the seasoning. Boil up once, add fish and macaroni; heat to a bubble without stirring, and turn into a deep dish.

Fish scallop

Prepare as above, but instead of stewing turn all into a buttered pudding-dish as soon as macaroni and fish are added to the hot sauce; strew crumbs on top, stick bits of butter over it and bake, covered, half an hour. Then brown.

Baked chowder

Fry a small sliced onion in a large spoonful of butter; strain and return butter to the frying-pan. Have ready two pounds of cod or other firm fish cut into inch squares; put into the hot butter and toss and turn until they are well coated; pack the fish in a buttered bake-dish alternately with slices of parboiled potatoes, fat salt pork, minced fine (about half a pound in all), bits of butter rolled in flour, minced parsley and two tomatoes chopped. Season a large cupful of oyster liquor with paprika and salt, and pour over all. Cover with split Boston crackers that have been soaked in milk for half an hour, fit on a lid and bake, covered, one hour. Then brown. A savory family dish.

A “Cape Cod folks” tid-bit

Soak two pounds of salt cod over night. In the morning wash and scrub it with a whisk to remove lingering crystals of salt and cover with hot water in which an onion has been boiled. Let it stand in this until the water is cold. Take out the fish and lay between two towels until perfectly dry. Broil then on both sides, turning twice; lay it in a hot water dish; break to pieces with a fork, and cover well with hot drawn butter, seasoned with pepper, lemon juice and minced parsley. Let it stand (covered) for ten minutes over the hot water before serving, and you will be surprised by the excellent dish contrived of such homely materials.

Halibut and cheese scallop

Have ready two cupfuls (less, if you happen not to have as much) of cold, cooked halibut, flaked rather coarsely with a fork. Make a good white sauce—drawn butter—based upon milk instead of water. Butter a bake-dish and fill it with alternate layers of the fish, sauce and grated cheese (very mild), using altogether about four tablespoonfuls of the latter, and cover the top with crumbs. Bake half an hour in a quick oven, and serve hot. Keep covered until ten minutes before serving, when brown.

Deviled halibut or cod

Pick cold, cooked fish into bits with a silver fork. Make a forcemeat of bread-crumbs, the yolks of two eggs run through colander or vegetable press, a tablespoonful of melted butter, one of minced parsley, a teaspoonful of onion juice, paprika and salt. Mix with the fish, wet up with oyster liquor and fill scallop shells with the mixture. Cover with fine crumbs, pepper and salt them, put a dot of butter upon each scallop and bake quickly to a light brown.

EGGS

Curried eggs

Boil seven eggs hard and throw into cold water to loosen the shells. Remove these without tearing or breaking the eggs, and cut round in slices nearly half an inch thick. Have ready in a saucepan a large cup of gravy from which the fat has been removed. Chicken gravy or stock is especially nice for this purpose. Season well with a teaspoonful of onion juice, half a cupful of strained tomato sauce, with pepper and salt. Boil up, thicken with two tablespoonfuls of browned flour and a teaspoonful of curry powder, and simmer together three minutes.

Arrange the sliced eggs upon a chafing-dish or hot-water dish, pour the curry sauce over them; set in the hot oven for three or four minutes, covered, to get heated through, and send to table in the hot-water dish.

Serve boiled rice with it.

Banana toast

Is a pleasing accompaniment to curried eggs.

Remove the crust from graham bread and cut it into thin slices. Spread one piece with thin slices of banana and lay another slice of bread upon this. Press the two pieces together that they may not fall apart, and toast quickly to a light brown. Keep hot in the oven until wanted, as these sandwiches are not good when cold.

Egg timbales

Beat six eggs light and stir into them a half-pint of rich milk, a pinch of soda and salt and white pepper to taste. Pour into greased muffin-pans; set these in an outer pan of boiling water, and bake until the egg is “set.” Turn the timbales out upon a platter and pour a rich brown sauce around them.

Baked omelet

Break five eggs, the whites and yolks separately. Soak the crumbs of a slice of white bread in a half-cupful of milk for ten minutes. Beat the yolks of the eggs thoroughly and whip the whites stiff. Stir the bread and milk into the yolks, add a teaspoonful of salt and a saltspoonful of white pepper, and stir in the whites of the eggs lightly—just enough to mix them. Turn into a well-greased pudding-dish and bake in a quick oven. Do not let the omelet crust over too quickly, but put a piece of paper over the top for a few minutes. Uncover and brown.

Deviled eggs

Boil a dozen eggs hard, throw into cold water, and at the end of half an hour remove the shells. Cut the eggs carefully in half, extract the yolks and rub these to a paste with three tablespoonfuls of salad oil, two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, a half-teaspoonful of made mustard, a dash of paprika, two or three drops of Tabasco sauce, and salt to taste. Form this paste into balls, put the balls back into the halved whites and fit the whites into place. Run a wooden toothpick through the two halves of each egg to hold them together. Wrap every egg in waxed or tissue paper to keep it from becoming dry. Eat cold, with or without mayonnaise dressing.

Omelets cachés

Wash and wipe six large, smooth tomatoes of uniform size. Cut a piece from the blossom end of each and lay aside. Scoop out the pulp carefully, not to break the walls of the tomato. Set together in an open pudding-dish and put this into a brisk oven until the tomatoes are smoking-hot, but not until they break and collapse. Have ready the pulp you have extracted, minced and stewed, seasoned with butter, pepper, salt, a little onion juice and sugar. Drain off most of the juice. Beat four eggs light, add four tablespoonfuls of cream, a tablespoonful of butter heated to a roux with one of flour, mix quickly with three tablespoonfuls of the drained tomato, and fill the tomato shells with them. Fit on the tops and set in a shallow pan upon the top grating of a quick oven. Five minutes should cook them. Slip a spatula under each tomato, transfer to a hot platter and serve at once.

Pass thin slices of brown bread with them.

Chicken or turkey timbales

Boil eight eggs very hard and leave them in cold water for two or more hours. Take the shells off, cut in half, and extract the yolks. Chop the whites before running them through a vegetable press. Now mix with them four heaping tablespoonfuls of the breast of chicken or turkey minced as finely as possible; season with half a teaspoonful of onion juice, paprika and celery salt to taste, and mix to a white paste with the whites of three eggs beaten to a standing froth. Have ready enough buttered “nappies” or pâté pans to hold the mixture; fill them, set in a pan of hot water and bake twenty minutes in a quick oven.

Turn out upon a hot platter; pour a good white sauce about the base, heap a teaspoonful of the powdered yolks on the top of each and serve.

The yolks are prepared by running through a colander or, better still, a vegetable press.

Scallop of chicken and eggs

Strew fine, dry, buttered crumbs over the bottom of a buttered baking-dish, then put in a layer of cold, cooked chicken cut into small dice. Cook a teaspoonful of chopped onion in a tablespoonful of butter till slightly colored, add a cupful of milk, and when hot stir in half a cupful of dry bread-crumbs. Add a teaspoonful of chopped parsley and a little salt and paprika. Let it cool until blood-warm, then stir in two well-beaten eggs, and pour the mixture over the meat. Cover with fine crumbs. Place in the oven and bake, covered, half an hour. Serve in the dish in which it is baked.

A savory mince

Use any cold meat you have left over, except beef—poultry, lamb, veal, mutton, will do—and a little ham chopped and mixed with the other meat. Add one-third bread-crumbs soaked in stock or gravy and season well. Stir in a saucepan until very hot. Prepare “cups” of stale bread by cutting round, then with a smaller cutter marking out an inner circle, from which scrape out the bread, leaving bottom and sides whole. Dip these in a raw, sugarless custard made of a cupful of milk and two beaten eggs, and let each absorb all it will hold. Fry in hot cottolene or other fat to a light brown, drain, fill with the mince, which should be quite soft, drop a raw egg upon each, and set in the oven until the egg is “set.”

Larded sweetbreads (roasted)

Blanch the sweetbreads. With a sharp skewer make holes in them and run through these openings narrow strips of salt pork. Let the bits of pork project half an inch on each side. Lay the sweetbreads in a covered roaster, pour about them a pint of cleared and seasoned soup stock, cover closely and cook for an hour, then transfer to a hot dish. Thicken the gravy in the pan, season and pour it about the sweetbreads.

Larded sweetbreads (fried)

Prepare as in the last recipe, but instead of roasting dip in egg, then in crumbs; set on ice for an hour and fry in boiling butter.

Sweetbread pâtés

Make shells of rich puff paste, bake them, and fill, while hot, with a mixture made according to the following recipe:

Cut a pair of blanched sweetbreads into small dice. Cut ten canned mushrooms into quarters and mix them with the sweetbreads. Add eight blanched and chopped almonds and six olives cut into tiny pieces. Heat a cup of cream and thicken it with a teaspoonful of cornstarch rubbed into one of butter. When smooth and thick add the sweetbreads, olives, etc. If too thick now, thin the mixture with a little mushroom liquor. As soon as all the ingredients are heated through remove from the fire and turn into the shells.

Timbales of sweetbreads

Blanch and chop two pairs of sweetbreads until as fine as powder, then rub them very smooth with the back of a silver spoon. Work into this paste a gill of sweet cream and the beaten yolks of two eggs. Season with salt and white pepper, and beat long and hard. Butter small timbale molds or “nappies,” and pour the mixture into them. Set the molds in a pan of hot water and bake in a hot oven until “set.” Loosen the contents of the nappies with a sharp knife, and turn out the molds upon a hot dish. Pour a white sauce about them.

Sweetbreads en nid

Follow directions for larded sweetbreads, and keep hot. Make a “nest” for them of cold boiled ham shredded into bits hardly larger than coarse straw; cold roast chicken, turkey or veal, and cold boiled spaghetti in four-inch lengths. Arrange upon a hot platter to simulate a nest, pour a little scalding, well-seasoned gravy over them, and set the dish in a hot oven about five minutes. Have ready a large cupful of rich tomato sauce, strained and thickened with a roux of butter and flour, and seasoned with salt, paprika and onion juice. Lay the sweetbreads upon the “straw,” and pour the boiling tomato sauce over all.

A baked mince

Mix together two cupfuls of minced cold lamb, chicken or veal, one cupful of chopped ham and one cupful of fine bread-crumbs. Moisten thoroughly with well-seasoned soup stock. Turn into a greased bake-dish and set in the oven until heated through. Break upon the top of the mince as many eggs as will lie side by side on it, sprinkle with salt and pepper, return to the oven and bake until the whites are set and firm. Send to table in a pudding-dish.

Curried beef

Melt three tablespoonfuls of butter in a frying-pan and cook in it for five minutes an onion, sliced. Remove the onion, and stir into the melted butter two tablespoonfuls of browned flour, mixed with a tablespoonful of curry powder. Cook until they bubble, then pour on them a pint of beef stock. Stir until you have a thick, brown sauce. Season with salt and mix with it two cupfuls of cold roast beef cut into dice. Toss and stir until the meat is heated through. Have ready on a platter a hollowed mold of boiled rice, and pour the meat and sauce in the center and about the base of this.

Curried veal

Cut three pounds of lean veal into dice an inch square. Fry a sliced onion in two tablespoonfuls of butter until it begins to color. Strain out the onion; heat the butter to hissing, put in the meat cubes and shake over the coals until heated through and slightly browned. Turn the contents of the frying-pan into a pot, rinsing out the pan with a cupful of boiling water, just enough to cover the meat. Sprinkle over all three tablespoonfuls of finely-minced salt pork and some chopped parsley, cover closely and stew gently for two hours, or until the veal is tender. Drain the meat free from gravy in a colander and keep hot over boiling water. Return the gravy to the fire; add salt if necessary. Have ready in a cup a great spoonful of browned flour, wet to a paste with cold water. When smooth, add a teaspoonful of curry, and stir in well before adding both to the hot gravy. As it begins to boil put in the meat; cook gently (covered) ten minutes, and serve.

Always serve boiled rice with curry, the same person helping both. A large spoonful of the rice is put upon the heated plate, and the curry poured over it. Bananas that have been chilled upon the ice are a most grateful accompaniment to curry of any kind. One is given to each person, who peels and slices it with a silver knife.

Curried lamb or mutton

Make in the same way, substituting either of these meats for veal. If you like, stir a little currant jelly into the gravy.

Curried chicken

Joint the chicken as for frying, divide the breast and the back into two pieces, and proceed as with a curry of veal. It is particularly nice and popular with all who have been gently led on to appreciate a savory curry.

A “toss-up” of veal

Make a roux of one tablespoonful of butter and the same of flour; when very hot and bubbling, add a little onion juice, pepper and salt, four tablespoonfuls of hot milk (cream if you have it), with a pinch of soda heated in it; lastly, six tablespoonfuls of rich, strained tomato sauce. Stir in two cupfuls of cold veal, cut into dice, and the moment it begins to boil remove from the fire to a hot dish.

Mince of veal garnished with eggs

Make the mince as directed in foregoing recipe, but somewhat stiffer; season highly, bring to a boil and mold in the middle of a hot platter. Against this hillock of mince lay fried eggs, neatly trimmed, and outside of these curled strips of fried breakfast bacon. This dish will be much improved by the addition of half a can of mushrooms, minced fine.

Mince of lamb and rice

This is very much like the mince just described, the main difference being that a cupful of cold boiled rice and a green sweet pepper minced fine are added to the meat and tomato sauce. You may also substitute poached eggs for fried, and ham for bacon.

Any of the dishes just mentioned make savory a plain family luncheon, and may be easily prepared at little expense by the housewife who keeps a bright lookout for available “left-overs.”

An Italian hotch-potch

which became a favorite with us under the general name of “Frittura” during the winters we spent in Florence.

I suppose that it was a weekly clearing-house for all manner of leavings from roast and boiled meats, but it was good! Calf’s and poultry livers; cold mutton, lamb and veal; calf’s brains; now and then oysters; small artichokes; sprigs of cauliflower; potatoes; celery—all cooked, cut into small pieces, seasoned, rolled in flour, next in egg, again in flour, and fried; first the meat, then the vegetables, in boiling oil, and drained,—were duly sorted, but served upon one and the same dish—very hot.

Stew of mutton and peas

Cut three pounds of lean mutton into dice. In a pot fry six slices of fat salt pork; when crisp, remove them with a skimmer and lay in the grease the mutton, dredged with flour and half an onion sliced. Cook for five minutes, then cover with cold water and simmer until the meat is very tender. Remove the meat, lay it on a platter, sprinkle with salt and pepper and keep it hot while you thicken the gravy in the pot with a brown roux, and season it to taste with a tablespoonful of tomato catsup, a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet and salt and pepper to taste. Now add the contents of a can of peas. These peas should have been drained and exposed to the air for an hour. Bring the stew to a boil, cook for five minutes, return the meat to the pot for a minute, then pour all into the hot platter.

Mince turnovers

Two cupfuls of flour, sifted twice with one rounded teaspoonful of baking-powder and half as much salt. Chop into it two tablespoonfuls of butter, and wet up with a cupful of milk, quickly and lightly. Roll into a sheet less than a quarter-inch thick, and this into squares about six inches across. Put into the middle of each square a large tablespoonful of minced poultry, veal, ham or lamb—or a mixture of these well-seasoned and wet with gravy. Double the paste into a triangle, enfolding the meat; pinch or print the edges to hold them together, and bake.

They are good hot or cold.

Beef with sauce piquante

Cut slices from yesterday’s roast of beef, mutton or veal. Put into a saucepan three tablespoonfuls of butter, a teaspoonful of vinegar, a half-teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, a tablespoonful of tomato catsup, a teaspoonful of made mustard, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir these ingredients well together and lay the sliced meat into the sauce thus prepared. Turn the meat over and over until heated through, and serve with the sauce poured over it.

Larded beef

With a sharp knife make through a round of beef incisions an inch apart. Into the holes thus made stick long strips of fat salt pork. Rub the meat with a dressing made of equal parts of oil and vinegar, seasoned with salt and pepper. Let the meat lie in this for eight hours. Put the meat into a covered roaster, pour a pint of beef stock around it and roast for four hours. Set away in the gravy with a weight on the top. When cold, slice very thin and serve.

Beef loaf

Mix together three pounds of chopped raw beef, one-quarter of a pound of minced salt pork, one cup of cracker dust, two teaspoonfuls, each, of salt and pepper, and moisten all with two beaten eggs and a teaspoonful of onion juice. Work in two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, and pack in a greased mold. Cover; set in a roasting-pan of boiling water, and cook in a steady oven for two hours. Let the loaf get cold in the mold before turning out.

Veal loaf

Chop two pounds of cold cooked veal very fine, and work into it a teaspoonful, each, of salt, pepper and onion juice, a dozen chopped olives and as many minced mushrooms. Wet with a half-pint of veal or chicken stock. Pack in a greased mold and cook as in the preceding recipe. Have the loaf very cold before turning it out.

Pressed veal

Boil two pounds of lean veal in enough water to cover it. When cold, remove the meat from the liquor, skim the grease from the latter and chop the meat fine. To the chopped veal add a cupful of minced boiled ham and two hard-boiled eggs, chopped. Season the veal liquor with celery salt, pepper, a little tomato catsup and a dash of nutmeg. Make the chopped meat very moist with this liquor and press the mass hard into a buttered mold. Cover and set in the oven for half an hour. Remove from the oven; keep in a cool place for twenty-four hours, and turn from the mold upon a chilled platter.

Jellied tongue

Boil a tongue, and when cold place it in a brick-shaped mold. Into a pint of seasoned and heated beef stock stir a half-box of soaked gelatine, and when this is dissolved pour the stock around the tongue in the mold. When cool, set on the ice until the jelly is very firm. Turn out on a cold platter.

Jellied chicken

Boil a chicken the day before it is to be used. When the liquor is cold skim from it every bit of fat.

Soak a half-cup of gelatine in a cup of cold water for two hours. Remove all skin from the chicken and cut the meat into neat dice. Cut two dozen canned French mushrooms into halves. Stone and halve one dozen large olives.

Bring to a boil and strain a pint of the chicken liquor; stir into it the soaked gelatine, and set aside to cool. As it begins to thicken prepare your chicken loaf in the following manner: In a buttered mold lay a stratum of the chicken, sprinkle with pepper and salt, and a few halved olives and mushrooms, pour upon this the thickening, but still liquid, jelly. Then add more chicken, mushrooms and olives; pour upon them more jelly, and proceed in this manner until the mold is full. Set in a cool place for twenty-four hours before using. Lay a warm cloth for a moment about the mold, then invert it upon a chilled platter. This loaf is delicious served with lettuce and mayonnaise.

Beefsteak and sherry sauce

Broil a porterhouse steak over a clear fire until done. Lay on a hot platter. Make a sauce of a cupful of beef bouillon, thickened with a tablespoonful of brown roux, and when this is smooth add to it a wineglassful of sherry, a tablespoonful of onion juice and a half-cupful of French mushrooms, cut in half. Boil up once and pour over the steak.

Mock roast chicken

Boil and chop fine the giblets from three chickens saved from roast or fricassee. Trim the fat from a good-sized, but not thick, round steak. Make a forcemeat in the following manner:

Mix together the chopped chicken giblets, two hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine, and a half-cupful of fine bread-crumbs. Moisten all with chicken stock. Lay the steak upon the table, cover thickly with the forcemeat and roll it up, as you would a sheet of music, tying it in shape with stout strings. Melt two tablespoonfuls of butter in a frying-pan and cook the steak in this just long enough to brown it lightly. Remove the meat from the pan and put over the fire in a large pot. Add to the fat in the pan a tablespoonful of browned flour and pour upon it two cups of chicken stock. Stir to a smooth sauce, season to taste and pour over the steak in the pot. Cover closely and simmer for an hour and a half. Transfer the meat to a hot platter, remove the string, and pour the sauce over it.

Stewed rump steak

Trim the fat from the edge of a thick rump steak, and put the steak over the fire in a large pot. Pour over it a cup of cold water, cover closely and set at the side of the range, where it will simmer for three-quarters of an hour after it reaches the boil. Remove the meat from the pot and transfer to a baking-pan; season the gravy and pour it over the top, and cook for fifteen minutes longer, basting three times during the process. Remove the steak to a hot platter and set in the open oven while you add to the gravy a cup of soup stock and thicken it with a little browned flour rubbed to a paste with a spoonful of butter. Season with kitchen bouquet, celery salt and a half-teaspoonful of good sauce. Add a dozen canned mushrooms cut in half. Cook one minute and pour over the steak.

Rump steak and tomatoes

With a sharp carving-knife split a thick rump steak, thus making two thin steaks. Spread the lower half of this with bits of butter, a little minced ham and a cupful of tomatoes. (Use the canned tomatoes, straining off the juice and using it for the sauce.) Lay the upper half of the steak, sandwich-wise, upon the lower, and fasten the two together with small, stout skewers. Lay the meat in a covered roasting-pan, dash a cup of boiling water over it, and cook, allowing twenty minutes to each pound. Transfer to a hot dish, remove the skewers and pour over the steak a savory tomato sauce.

Mutton mince with tomatoes

Make three cups of good tomato sauce thickened with a heaping teaspoonful of flour rubbed into one of butter. Keep hot in a double boiler set at the side of range.

Toast slices of bread, butter, spread on a platter, and put a tablespoonful of tomato sauce on each. Into the remainder of the tomato sauce turn two cupfuls of minced mutton, put the saucepan over the fire, stir until the meat is thoroughly heated, season to taste and pour upon the toast.

Porterhouse steak with oysters

Broil a fine tender steak on both sides and transfer it to a hot dish. Pepper and salt well, then rub into the steak a mixture of butter rubbed to a cream with the juice of half a lemon.

Put one pint of oysters into a saucepan without any of the liquor. Stir until the edges ruffle, add one tablespoonful of butter creamed with an equal amount of flour and cooked to a roux. Pour over the hot steak and serve at once.

Savory stew of beef

Cut two pounds of raw lean beef into very small strips, almost like straws, with a keen blade. Put into a saucepan; cover with cold weak stock, or, if you have none, with cold water, and cook slowly two hours. Put into another saucepan a cupful of rich brown stock, one small onion chopped fine, a little grated nutmeg, cayenne pepper and the juice of half a lemon; boil these ingredients a few minutes and mix with the beef, adding a little browned flour if necessary. Dish upon a hot platter, lay triangles of fried toast about the base, and serve.

Roulades of beef

Cut two pounds of lean steak into pieces about five inches long and half as wide, and less than half an inch thick. Make a forcemeat of cooked sausage, chopped fine, and mixed with one-fourth as much fine, buttered and seasoned bread-crumbs. Place two tablespoonfuls of this mixture on each piece of meat, roll them into the shape of a small cylinder, and sew both ends with fine thread. Let them brown in butter in a frying-pan, then put them into a saucepan with the juice of a lemon, two cupfuls of brown stock, a carrot and an onion, sliced, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover closely, and cook for two hours. Transfer to a hot platter, clip and draw out the thread; thicken the gravy left in the saucepan with browned flour, add a little Worcestershire sauce and a glass of sherry; boil up once and pour over the roulades.

How to use up the cold tongue

Cut cold boiled beef-tongue into dice. Make a roux in a saucepan with two tablespoonfuls of butter and the same amount of flour, salt, pepper, and the juice of half a lemon. Add a cupful of strained tomato. Simmer slowly for ten minutes. Strain, return to the saucepan, lay in the tongue and let it stand where it will keep hot without boiling for five minutes. Serve in a hot platter.

This is still better if made of fresh beef’s tongue.

Galantine

Cut a strip of lean veal from the loin or the breast, about six inches wide and twice as long. Prepare a forcemeat of cooked ham, chopped mushrooms, any scraps of poultry you may have, the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, one-third as much crumbs as you have meat, season with paprika and grated onion.

Lay this forcemeat in the center of the veal, roll up carefully, wrap in cheese-cloth and sew up closely. Lay it in a plate in a kettle, cover with cold water, add one-half teaspoonful of salt, one bay leaf and a sprig of thyme, cover and boil for fifteen minutes. Then put it at one side of the fire where it can only simmer for two hours. When done set aside, with a plate upon it and a heavy weight upon the plate, until next day. Clip the threads, unwrap the meat and serve, garnished with cress and nasturtiums. Cut perpendicularly.

Chipped smoked beef

Shred the beef into thin straws. Make a white sauce, lay in the beef and simmer for five minutes. Then stir in a beaten egg, a little onion juice and pepper. Stir until the egg is set, and serve upon toast.

Brains on toast

Scald and blanch the brains, beat smooth, add three eggs and beat hard. Have ready a tablespoonful of butter in a frying-pan hissing hot; turn in the mixture and stir steadily for three minutes. Serve upon rounds of toast.

Baked calf’s liver (larded)

Lard with strips of fat salt pork, inserted perpendicularly. The lardoons should project on both sides. Cover the bottom of a saucepan with minced pork, place the liver on it; add a carrot, two small onions, a half-dozen stalks of celery, all chopped fine; the juice of a lemon and a quart of strong stock; cover the saucepan and bake slowly for two hours and a half, basting often with the liquor in the pan. When done remove the liver, and put into the oven for a few minutes to brown; make a rich gravy of the remainder of the gravy in the pan; put the liver in the center of the dish, strain the sauce and pour over it.

Mock pâté de foie gras

When poultry is in full season and the weather is cold, save the giblets from half a dozen fowls, boiling them, salting slightly to keep them and setting them in a cold place. When you have enough, chop them, rejecting tough portions, and run through a vegetable press. Work to a smooth paste with melted butter, season with paprika, salt, and a dash of onion juice. Pack down in small jars, pour melted butter over the top, and keep in a cool, dry place. If you will boil a few mushrooms in salted water, strain, cut them into coarse dice and intersperse throughout the paste, you will have a veritable imitation of the famous Strasburg pâtés.

You may substitute calf’s, lamb’s or pig’s liver for those of fowls if you can not get the latter.

Savory ham

Fry slices of boiled ham on both sides. Transfer to a hot dish. Cook together in a frying-pan four tablespoonfuls of vinegar, a teaspoonful of granulated sugar, a teaspoonful of French mustard, and a dash of paprika. Stir until very hot, and pour over the fried ham.

Cottage pie

(Contributed)

Chop cold meat very fine. To each cupful add one saltspoonful of salt and one-and-a-half saltspoonfuls of pepper, a pinch of summer savory and one-half cupful of stock. Put into a baking dish and cover with a crust of mashed potatoes. Brush over the top with milk and bake in an oven to a golden brown.

Breaded tongue with tomato sauce

(Contributed)

Take six slices of cooked tongue, one-half can of tomatoes, one slice of onion, three tablespoonfuls of butter and a bit of bay leaf, three tablespoonfuls of flour, one-third cupful of bread-crumbs and one egg. Cut the tongue in slices about one-half inch thick. Dip into the crumbs, then in the egg and then in the crumbs again, and sauté in butter. Place on a dish and pour around it a sauce made by cooking together the tomatoes, onion and bay leaf fifteen minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Steamed beef

(Contributed)

Select a piece of lean beef, wipe well with a cloth wrung out of cold water; remove all pieces of fat and gash with a sharp knife. Put the meat into a stone crock, sprinkle with salt and pepper and put in a few cloves. Cover with a tight lid. Cook in an oven slowly for several hours allowing no steam to escape. When done the meat will be very tender.

Irish stew

Take a pound of meat from the neck of beef or mutton and cut into neat pieces. Stew gently, and about an hour before it is done season and add two onions cut into dice and two carrots also cut into dice. About half an hour before the meat is done add two potatoes and three stalks of celery cut into dice. Serve on a platter, putting the vegetables around the meat.

Veal loaf (raw meat)

Put three pounds of raw veal and one-fourth pound of salt pork through the meat chopper; add to this one teacupful of fine bread crumbs, one tablespoonful of butter, three beaten eggs to which four tablespoonfuls of cream have been added, one teaspoonful of pepper, three teaspoonfuls of salt and two teaspoonfuls of powdered sage. Mix well together and form into a loaf. Bake in a mold two and a half hours, basting with butter and water.

Peppers stuffed with giblets

Extract the seeds from large sweet green peppers, and cut the latter into halves. Pour boiling water over them to mellow their pungency. Leave them in this until they are cold and set them on ice to get firm. When ready to cook them fill each half with minced giblets seasoned and moistened with gravy. Put the halves together, fasten in place with skewers or toothpicks, set in a bake-dish; pour in enough stock to prevent scorching and bake, covered, twenty minutes.

FAMILIAR TALK

LIVING TO LEARN

When one is too old to learn anything, his day of life is virtually over, so far as usefulness to his kind goes. The ten or twenty years left to him upon earth are a blunder on the part of some one, and we know that the Creator and Father of us all makes no mistakes. In the eloquent (and pessimistic) description of old age from the pen of the royal preacher-poet, we read that the aged shall be afraid of that which is high. The shrinking from new emprises, characteristic of the days when the almond-tree shall blossom and the knees that upbear (or keep) the house, shall tremble, is excusable when physical infirmity has enfeebled nervous forces and digestion. There is no excuse except this for the cessation of mind-growth.

This may sound didactic. It is written with a purpose. Given a sane mind in a sane body, and learning should go on indefinitely. The man or woman of mature years leaves off lessons because he chooses to get out of the habit of study. The prejudice against old cooks—said by one authority to be either drunk or crazy as a class—is founded upon this disinclination to learn novel methods. She who honestly aspires after excellence never thinks that she has reached it. When, in saying, “that is not MY WAY,” a cook believes that she has put an end, not only to controversy, but to any suspicion that the world may have moved an inch or two since she learned her trade—she registers herself among the incurables.

The mistress who yields to the earliest manifestations of an inclination to draw the dead line in housewifely progress is weakly indulgent or blindly foolish. In one wealthy family, not a hundred miles from a great city, “a valued old servant” played the tyrant for over a score of years. Little by little, the employers, mindful of her long term of faithful service, admitted her pleas that this or that new-fangled way was opposed to her habits and inclination, until family bills of fare were monotonous to boredom, the style of serving that of a preceding generation. At last Elizabeth died and was buried at the master’s expense.

“It’s dreadful, I suppose,” piped the youngling of the long-suffering band on the way home from the funeral. “But it ought to be some comfort that we won’t be obliged to have rice pudding three times a week any more.”

Faithful Elizabeth had her epitaph.

Nothing is more solemnly and sadly sure in this rushing age than that he who does not keep up with it will be thrown down and trampled out of sight. It is a trifle, apparently, when a woman tabooes oil in salad dressing because she “has never been used to putting it in,” when she thinks mint sauce a “trashy” accompaniment to roast lamb, and “won’t hear of hot sauce with cold pudding,” or whipped cream as an accompaniment to ice-cold raw tomatoes. When the vegetable dishes must all be set on the table with the meat, “as she has always had them,” and lettuce be cut up and dressed in the kitchen at the cook’s convenience, instead of being served, crisp and cool, from the deft fingers of some member of the family who is “up in salads.”

Each protest is a symptom of decadence which is wilful, not inevitable. She has stopped learning because she has “stopped.” In time, mental muscles become stiff, but disuse is the cause of the change.

“I account that day lost in which I have learned no new thing,” said an aged sage.

Our housewife may lay the saying to heart. If there be a better way than hers of doing anything—from making pickles to giving a wedding supper—she should be on the alert to possess herself of it. It is not true that it is easier for young people to keep themselves and their houses abreast of the times than it is for their elders. The first step that counts in the downward road is the tendency not to take any step at all. To stand still is to be left.

Many who believe that they cultivate the seeing eye, the hearing ear, and the willing, receptive mind, live and die without learning the great truth that the mighty thing we call Life is made up of minute matters. They see and admire the coral reef that heaves a back a mile long out of the surf, and give never a thought to the coral builders.

A man who thinks much and observes much, once told me that one essential difference between a man’s work and a woman’s is that he grasps general principles while she gives her attention to details.

A man, according to this authority, is an impressionist painter, handling his brush boldly, dashing in broad effects of light and shadow, while a woman finishes each object carefully, sometimes, after the manner of the Dutch school of painting, showing the very hairs upon the brawny peasant’s arm.

(I may be excused for saying, in passing, that, being a woman, I founded upon his general principle the particular moral that one sex supplements the other, and that the Creator meant the work of the world to be done by them in concert.)

He had turned from his desk to talk with me and, while talking, looked ruefully at an inky forefinger.

“I should keep some pumice stone, or acetic acid, or acetate of soda, or ammonia, here to remove ink-stains,” he said. “I always spill ink in filling my fountain pen.”

A box of matches was in a pigeonhole; a wet sponge, used for stamping and sealing letters, was close to the disfigured hand. I bade him wet the match and rub it upon the stain until it disappeared—the work of a minute. The sulphur in the ever-convenient match acted upon the black spots without blackening the skin, whereas any one of the four detersives he had mentioned would have left a hard, disagreeable sensation upon the cuticle. He was all right as to the principles. The one driblet of practical wisdom was for the moment worth them all.

A bright young woman whom I am glad to know, has written a little book entitled, “FIRST AID TO THE YOUNG HOUSEKEEPER.” It includes scores of things which everybody ought to know, and which everybody else, especially the writer of household manuals, takes it for granted that the housewife does know. It is intelligent attention to this very matter of detail that constitutes the “finish” of work of whatever kind. One of the “Sunday books” of my childhood was a series called “THE WEEK,” a story of English cottage life. I can recall many sentences and the whole story in substance. One remark was to this effect: “Mary was a good housekeeper; Nanny an indifferent. Nanny’s hearth was free of ashes and cinders, but dusty in the corners. Mary’s was not only swept, but pipe-clayed. Mary’s kettle was bright and black; Nanny’s clean, but brown and dull.”

That is, Nanny had mastered general principles; Mary looked to details.

I read last week in a woman’s corner of a daily paper a letter from a grateful housewife whose hall carpet had been deluged by the kerosene from a broken lamp. By the advice of a visitor she promptly covered the great spot with dry oatmeal. When this was swept off in the morning not a trace of the oil remained.

“My husband explains this by saying that the oatmeal is at once an alkali and an absorbent,” she writes. “I pass the useful knowledge on.”

A careless servant knocked a lamp from the table in the bedroom of my summer cottage and the matting got a full quart of the best kerosene. I had the floating oil wiped up with a clean, soft cloth, opened the windows, shut the door, and let no one enter the room for twelve hours. Not a trace of grease remained at the end of that time. The volatile oil had effaced itself. The alkaline absorbent was not needed.

“We are all fond of cauliflower; my husband and sons like young onions in the season,” said the mistress of a big house. “We can not have either of these vegetables cooked on account of the odor. It fills the house from cellar to attic.”

A housewife who lives in a tiny city flat has both of these dishes whenever she likes. The vegetables are put over the fire in cold water; a little salt is thrown in, and the pot is left uncovered. If these rules be strictly obeyed, the rising odor during cooking will be scarcely perceptible.

A physician, driving with his wife through a lonely country neighborhood, heard screams issuing from the open door of a cottage and went in to see if he could be of use. A child had upset a kettle of boiling water upon its legs and feet and was in agony from the scald.

“Have you linseed oil and lime water in the house?” asked the doctor.

Before the distracted mother could say that there was neither, the doctor’s wife said, “Do you burn wood in any room?”

There was a wood-stove in the parlor. There is always lard in the country pantry. In three minutes an ointment of lard and soot from the stovepipe was beaten up and spread upon old linen; in five minutes the scalds were covered with it. The relief was speedy; the cure complete in a day or two.

The wise housewife gleans a great store of precious driblets against the hour and minute of need. Such study of details is like sweeping up gold filings. The separate particles are nominally valueless, compared with the mastery of great principles. When massed and assorted, they go far toward making life easy.

A suggestive German fable is of a trooper who saw a loose horseshoe on the ground as he was going into battle, got down, picked it up and hung it about his neck by a string. In the first charge a bullet struck the horseshoe and glanced aside harmlessly.

“Ha!” said the trooper. “Even a little armor is a good thing, if rightly placed.”

The horseshoe was “a detail.”

GENERAL DIRECTIONS

(Which the housewife is particularly requested to read)

Two things are essential to the excellence of croquettes. The mixture composing them must not be too stiff. The fat in which they are cooked must be boiling when they go in, and deep enough to float them. If these conditions are neglected, you will have a pasty, sticky compound, soaked with grease and misshapen, perhaps scorched on the under side. The hot fat should form a crust instantly which prevents the fat from touching the interior of the croquette.

Always make out croquettes at least a couple of hours before they are to be cooked; roll in egg, then in fine crumbs, or in cracker-dust; arrange upon a floured dish, not touching one another, and leave upon ice, or in a very cold place to stiffen.

Oyster croquettes

Cook twenty-five oysters in their liquor until they just begin to ruffle, remove from the fire, drain (reserving half a cupful of the liquor), and chop fine. Stir together over the fire two tablespoonfuls of flour and two of butter and pour on them a half-cupful of cream with a pinch of soda in it, and the half-cupful of oyster liquor. When beaten to a smooth sauce add slowly the beaten yolk of two eggs, then the chopped oysters, salt and pepper and a pinch of grated nutmeg. Remove at once from the fire and set aside to cool. When very cold form into croquettes.

Lobster croquettes

(Contributed)

Two cupfuls of minced lobster seasoned well with paprika, salt and a little mace. One-fourth the quantity of bread-crumbs, i. e. about half a cupful. Four tablespoonfuls of cream, heated (with a pinch of soda), and thickened with a teaspoonful of butter rolled in flour. Make a thick paste of the mixture; let it get stiff and cold; make into croquettes, roll in egg and cracker-crumbs; set on the ice for an hour; roll again in cracker-dust and fry in deep, hot cottolene or other fat, which has been heated slowly. Drain, garnish with lemon and parsley and serve.

Chicken croquettes

Cook together in a saucepan a tablespoonful of flour and one of butter until they are blended. Pour upon this white roux a cupful of rich milk, and when you have a smooth white sauce stir in a cupful and a half of minced boiled or roast chicken. Season to taste with celery salt, white pepper and a dash of nutmeg. Cook until well heated, then add the yolks of two eggs and cook for just two minutes before removing from the fire. Set aside until cold and stiff; mold into croquettes, roll in cracker-dust, in beaten egg and yet again in cracker-dust, and set on the ice for two hours before frying.

Turkey croquettes

Make in the same way, but mince more finely, as the meat is firmer and harder.

Veal croquettes

Make a forcemeat of two cupfuls of minced veal, two tablespoonfuls of bread-crumbs, one scant teaspoonful of salt, one-quarter teaspoonful of paprika, one-eighth teaspoonful of mace, one teaspoonful of onion juice, a tablespoonful of butter and the yolks of two raw eggs. Stir in a saucepan over the fire until the mixture is heated through, and set aside to cool. When cool, make up into croquettes, dip in beaten egg, roll in egg and fine crumbs and fry. Serve with tomato sauce.

Veal and spaghetti croquettes

Mix together a cupful, each, of cold cooked veal and of cold boiled spaghetti, both minced fine. Season with salt, paprika and onion juice. Stir into a cupful of drawn butter, well thickened; cook together in a saucepan until smoking hot, when add the yolk of a raw egg and a tablespoonful of Parmesan cheese (powdered). Form into croquettes, dip into beaten egg, roll in breadcrumbs and fry in smoking hot cottolene or other fat, or dripping until brown. Serve with tomato sauce.

Chicken and macaroni croquettes

Make as directed in the foregoing recipe, omitting the cheese. A nice sauce for either of these dishes is stewed and strained tomatoes, thickened with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour and cooked one minute before a large tablespoonful of grated Parmesan cheese is stirred in.

Rice croquettes

Beat an egg light and stir it into a cupful of boiled rice; add a teaspoonful, each, of sugar and melted butter, salt to taste, add enough cream to form the mixture into croquettes of the right consistency. Dip each croquette into beaten egg, then in cracker-dust and set all for two hours in a cold place before frying in boiling cottolene, or other fat, to a golden brown.

Croquettes of brains

Calf’s, or lamb’s or pig’s brains may be used for this dish.

Wash the brains in cold water, put them over the fire in boiling water, cook for two minutes, drain and lay in ice-cold water until cold and stiff.

Beat them into a paste. Have ready some thick drawn butter and beat into the brains until the paste is smooth and stiff enough to handle; add, then, flour to stiffen it yet more; season with pepper, salt and a little very finely minced parsley; flour your hands, make the paste into croquettes; roll in egg and cracker-crumbs; set on the ice for two hours—or more—and fry in deep boiling cottolene or other fat. Drain and serve.

Veal and ham croquettes

Mince enough cold veal to make a cupful when chopped; mix with it half as much cold boiled ham and one-fourth as much fine crumbs. Rub the yolk of a hard-boiled egg through a colander or vegetable press, and add to the mixture. Season with pepper and onion juice and moisten with thickened gravy or with drawn butter. Lastly, whip in a raw egg to bind the mixture and make into croquettes. Roll in egg and in crumbs, set aside to form and stiffen, and fry.

Potato croquettes

Work to a paste two cupfuls of mashed potatoes and a tablespoonful of melted butter. Season with salt and pepper and beat light with a raw egg. Form into balls or croquettes; roll in egg and then in cracker-dust; let them stand on ice until stiff and fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat. Drain off every drop of fat and serve hot.

Hominy croquettes

Make precisely as you would potato croquettes, beating hard until the mixture is entirely free from lumps, hominy being more adhesive and _co_hesive than potato.

Fish and potato croquettes

One cupful of cold cooked fish picked to pieces with a fork, and one-third the quantity of mashed potato worked to a stiff cream with a little drawn butter and seasoned with pepper, salt and a dash of Worcestershire sauce. Make into croquettes; roll in egg, then in cracker-crumbs; let them get cold and firm and fry in deep, hot cottolene or other fat.

Beef croquettes

Two cups of minced cold roast beef or steak—(never corned beef). One-quarter as much mashed potato. Season well with pepper, salt and onion juice, with a little very finely minced parsley. Enough gravy to moisten the mixture and a raw egg to bind it.

Work together well, mold into cones, cover with egg and cracker-dust; let them get chilled for two hours and fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat, or dripping.

Potato and nut croquettes

Blanch the kernels of two dozen English walnuts, or twice that number of pecans, by pouring scalding water over them and leaving them in it until the skins crack and curl. Strip them bare, spread on a dish, sprinkle lightly with celery salt and paprika, and let them get perfectly cold. When crisp, pound in a mortar, or chop and crush fine. Mix with them two cupfuls of mashed potatoes, into which you have worked a little cream, butter and salt while hot. Beat into the mixture the raw yolk of an egg. Mold into croquettes; set aside until stiff; roll in egg and then in cracker-crumbs, and fry. Dry in a hot colander and serve at once.

Celery croquettes

Cook together a tablespoonful of flour and one of butter, and when they bubble pour upon them a cupful of milk. When this is thick and free from lumps pour it gradually upon the beaten yolks of two eggs. Now add a cupful of celery cut (not chopped) into tiny bits, season with celery salt and white pepper and turn out to cool. When cold form with floured hands into small croquettes, roll these in cracker-dust, then in beaten egg, again in cracker-dust and set aside for an hour before frying in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat, always brought gradually to the boil.

Oyster-plant croquettes

(Contributed)

Boil, mash and season the oyster-plant, mold into shapes, sprinkle with bread-crumbs, dip in egg and again in crumbs and fry in hot fat.

Sweetbread croquettes

(Contributed)

Take four sweetbreads, removing pipes and membranes soak for an hour in cold salted water. Plunge into boiling salted water to which has been added a tablespoonful of vinegar; cook twenty minutes. Drop again into cold water to harden. Chop them very fine and season with salt and pepper and a teaspoonful of grated onion. Add the beaten yolks of three eggs, a tablespoonful of butter, one-half cupful of cream and enough fine bread-crumbs to make soft enough to roll into balls. Dip in egg and then in bread-crumbs and fry in hot fat to a nice brown. Take up and drain on brown paper. Serve hot with sliced lemon.

Mushroom croquettes

Mince fresh mushrooms fine with a keen blade; season with pepper and salt; add a tablespoonful of fine crumbs to each cupful of the chopped mushrooms; work in a little melted butter and the beaten yolk of an egg. When the mixture is cold form into croquettes and set on the ice until you are ready to cook them. Roll in egg and cracker crumbs and fry in deep fat.

WITH THE CASSEROLE

The French name “casserole” has a certain amount of terror for the American housewife. The foreign word startles her and awakens visions of cooking as done by a Parisian chef, or by one who has made the culinary art his profession. She, a plain, every-day housekeeper, would not dare aspire to the use of a casserole.

And yet the casserole itself is no more appalling than a saucepan. It is simply a covered dish, made of fireproof pottery, which will stand the heat of the oven or the top of the range. And the dainty cooked in this dish is “casserole” of chicken, rice, etc., as the case may be. Like many another object of dread this, when once known, is converted into a friend.

Casserole of chicken

Clean and joint a tender spring chicken. Put into a frying-pan three tablespoonfuls of butter and fry in this a small onion and a carrot, both cut into tiny dice. When these vegetables are lightly browned, turn into the casserole, add to them two cupfuls of clear soup stock, in which three bay leaves and a little thyme have been boiled and then removed. In this consommé lay the jointed chicken, put the closely-fitting cover on the casserole and set it in a steady oven. It should cook for an hour. At the end of this time stir into the chicken a dessertspoonful of tomato catsup. Recover and cook for half an hour longer. Then add two dozen small French mushrooms which have been previously stewed for ten minutes, lastly, a glass of sherry. Season the whole to taste with pepper and salt and leave uncovered in the oven long enough for the chicken to brown. Fresh mushrooms are, of course, better than canned when you can get them.

Casserole of rice and liver

Boil a cupful of rice in a quart of water until reduced to a soft paste. Mash this rice paste smooth with two tablespoonfuls of butter and salt and pepper to taste. Line a well-greased casserole with the mixture, pressing the paste firmly against bottom and sides, and leaving a large hollow in the center. Set in a cold place until stiff and firm. Meanwhile boil a pound of lamb’s liver, drain and chop fine. Heat in a saucepan two cupfuls of soup stock, season with a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, thicken with browned flour and stir into this sauce the minced liver. Fill the hollow in the center of the rice with the liver mixture, sprinkle with breadcrumbs and set in the oven to brown.

Casserole of potato and cheese

Boil a sufficient number of potatoes to make three cupfuls when mashed. Return the mashed potatoes to a saucepan and stir over the fire, as you add slowly the beaten yolks of three eggs. When the smoking mass is hot and stiff, turn it into a greased casserole and press firmly against the sides, leaving a hollow in the middle about the size of a kitchen teacup. Brush the top and sides of the potato with the white of an egg and set in the oven until glazed and firm. Meanwhile, heat in a frying-pan or chafing-dish six tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese in a gill of milk and when hot add to it the yolk of an egg, a pinch of salt and a dash of paprika. When this cheese-sauce is thick and hot, remove the casserole from the oven, fill the hollow in the middle of the potato with the cheese mixture, sprinkle cracker-crumbs over the top of the potato and cheese and return to the oven to brown. Serve in the casserole and at once.

Casserole of lamb or mutton chops

Trim the chops neatly, removing every bit of fat and skin. In the bottom of the casserole put a layer of pared and shredded tomatoes; sprinkle with salt, pepper, a little sugar and a teaspoonful of onion juice. Lay three or four chops upon the tomatoes; season them with salt and pepper; arrange about them small pellets of parboiled potato, cut with a gouge, after the manner of Parisian potatoes,—also a dozen or so champignons (canned mushrooms). Now, more tomato, seasoned as before, then more chops, potatoes and mushrooms, until all are used up in this order. The upper layer should be tomatoes. Pour in a generous cupful of stock—bouillon, consommé, mutton broth, or whatever you have; cover and cook steadily for two hours if the casserole be large.

When the meat is tender to the trial-fork, pour off the gravy carefully into a saucepan, thicken with browned flour; add the juice of half a lemon, a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet and a glass of brown sherry. Pour back over the contents of the casserole, set in the oven for three minutes, covered, and serve in the dish.

An elegant dish can be made of unpromising chops by following these directions.

Mock casseroles of chicken

Select large, smooth, tart apples of good flavor and of uniform size. Remove core with corer. Mince cold chicken fine, season with salt, a dash of cayenne, pinch of powdered thyme, one-half cupful of bread-crumbs, moistened with three or four teaspoonfuls of sweet cream. Fill each apple and bake in oven. Serve hot or cold with mayonnaise as a salad.

Creamed chicken

Carve enough meat from a cold roast chicken to make a pint when cut into small dice. Cook together in a saucepan a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour; when they are blended pour upon them a cup of white stock, and when this is thick, a cup of milk. Stir to a smooth sauce and add the minced chicken. Season to taste; cook until the meat is very hot and serve.

Creamed chicken and macaroni

Cut cold boiled or roast chicken into small dice of uniform size, and into half-inch lengths half the quantity of cold, cooked macaroni. Make a good white sauce, season highly with paprika, salt and a suspicion of onion juice. Beat two eggs light and stir into them four tablespoonfuls of cream, heated, with a pinch of soda. Mix well with the chicken and spaghetti; put over the fire in a frying-pan, or broad saucepan, and stir and toss until smoking hot. Serve in a deep dish.

Scallops of turkey or chicken

Chop the meat fine and to two cupfuls add a tablespoonful of butter, two tablespoonfuls of bread-crumbs, half a cupful of boiling water, salt and pepper to taste. Put these all into a saucepan and stir while heating. Lastly, put in two raw eggs, beaten light, and take from the fire. Fill baking cups two-thirds full of the mixture, set in a pan of boiling water and bake about twenty-five minutes. Turn out carefully into a heated dish and pour white sauce around them.

Philadelphia scrapple

(Contributed)

Take a cleaned pig’s head and boil until the flesh slips easily from the bones. Remove all the bones and chop fine. Set the liquor in which the meat was boiled aside until cold, take the cake of fat from the surface and return the liquor to the fire. When it boils, put in the chopped meat and season well with pepper and salt. Let it boil again and thicken with corn-meal as you would in making ordinary corn-meal mush, by letting it slip slowly through the fingers to prevent lumps.

Cook an hour, stirring constantly at first, afterward putting back on the range in a position to boil gently. When done, pour into a long, spare pan, not too deep, and mold. In cold weather this can be kept several weeks. Slice and sauté in butter or dripping.

CHEESE DISHES FOR LUNCHEON

A fondu of cheese

Grate cheese and crush broken and dried bread and crusts into fine crumbs. There should be two cupfuls of these to one of cheese. Wet the crumbs with two cupfuls of milk in which has been dissolved a bit of soda no larger than a Lima bean. Beat two eggs light, whites and yolks apart; whip the yolks into the soaked crumbs with a tablespoonful of melted butter. Season with salt and a dust of cayenne, add the frothed whites, deftly and rapidly; bake in a greased pudding dish in a brisk oven, keeping the dish covered until the fondu has puffed high and is crusty on top. Then brown lightly and serve at once, as it soon falls. Pass crackers and pickles with it.

Rice and cheese pudding

Boil a cupful of rice tender; drain dry in a hot colander; set at the side of the range for ten minutes. Mix, then, with two beaten eggs, a tablespoonful of butter, pepper and salt to taste. Line a well-greased dish with this paste, leaving a hollow in the middle. The walls of rice should be about an inch thick. Set in the hot oven for five minutes. Have ready a cupful of hot milk; stir into it a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, half a cupful of grated cheese, a generous pinch of paprika, with salt to taste, and a pinch of baking-soda. Lastly, and quickly, add a beaten egg. Pour this mixture into the hollowed rice, sift fine crumbs over it, and set covered in the oven. At the end of ten minutes uncover and brown slightly. Serve at once, as it falls into heaviness with standing.

Cheese rice

Boil a cupful of rice in two quarts of water. When tender, turn into a colander, drain, shake hard and stand at the side of the range ten minutes to dry. Now stir into the rice, first, a tablespoonful of melted butter, then four tablespoonfuls of Parmesan cheese and a dash of cayenne pepper. Serve very hot.

Tomatoes and cheese

Cut the stem-end from large tomatoes, and with a small spoon scoop out the insides. To two tablespoonfuls of the tomato pulp add a teaspoonful of bread-crumbs and the same quantity of cheese crumbled into bits. Season to taste and return this mixture to the tomatoes. Replace the stem-ends and bake the tomatoes for twenty minutes in a roasting-pan. Transfer to a hot platter and serve.

Cheese straws

To a half pint of prepared flour add two ounces of grated Parmesan cheese, moisten with the yolk of an egg and enough milk to make a paste that can be rolled out. Roll into a thin sheet and cut into narrow “straws.” Bake to a delicate brown. While they are hot sift grated cheese over them.

Cheese puffs

In a saucepan of boiling water melt two tablespoonfuls of butter. When the water and butter are boiling, stir into them four tablespoonfuls of flour, wet with a little cold water, and four tablespoonfuls of grated cheese. Cook for three minutes, stirring all the time. Remove from the fire, and when the mixture is cold add two eggs and beat hard for fifteen minutes. Line a baking-pan with greased paper and drop the mixture upon it, a spoonful at a time, leaving ample space between each puff for the swelling caused by baking. When puffed up and brown they are done and must be eaten at once.

Cheese fritters

Make small sandwiches of buttered white bread (from which the crust has been removed) sliced thin and thin slices of cheese. Press each sandwich firmly, that the two pieces of bread may not separate in the cooking, and drop into boiling fat. Fry to a golden brown and remove to a colander lined with tissue paper.

Egg and cheese timbales

Beat six eggs very light and add to them a gill of warm milk, in which a pinch of soda has been dissolved, five tablespoonfuls of grated cheese and a pinch, each, of paprika and salt. Butter small timbale molds, or pâté pans, fill with the egg mixture and set in a baking-pan of boiling water until the egg is set. Turn out carefully on a hot platter and pour hot tomato sauce about them. Serve at once, as they soon fall. A nice luncheon entrée.

Cheese soufflé

Cook together in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls, each, of butter and flour, and when they are blended pour upon them a half pint of milk. Stir to a smooth white sauce and stir into this eight tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, a saltspoonful of salt, a pinch of baking-soda and a dash of paprika. Have ready beaten four eggs, white and yolks separate. Remove the cheese mixture from the fire and gradually beat into it the yolks of the eggs; last of all, fold in lightly the stiffened whites. Turn the mixture into a greased pudding-dish and bake in a steady oven to a golden brown. Serve immediately.

Cheese ramakins

Cut slices of bread very thick, pare off the crusts and press a round cake-cutter half-way through the middle of each slice. Take out the crumb enclosed in this circle. Butter the bread and set in the oven until dry and crisp. Now fill the hollow in each slice with a mixture made of a tablespoonful of butter, four tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, a tablespoonful of cream and a little salt and pepper. Set for five minutes in a hot oven.

Cheese biscuits

Cook together in a small saucepan three tablespoonfuls of butter and four of flour. When these are blended pour upon them a half pint of boiling water and stir until thick and smooth; add four tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, a dash of celery salt and of cayenne pepper. Cook, stirring constantly, until very thick; remove from the fire and add, slowly, two beaten eggs. Beat for ten minutes and drop by the spoonful upon a greased baking-pan. Drop these cakes so far apart that they will not touch each other. Lay a sheet of brown paper over the top of the pan and set in a hot oven for ten or fifteen minutes. When the biscuits are puffed up and seem nearly done, remove the paper and brown them. Slip a thin-bladed knife carefully under the biscuits to loosen them from the pan and serve at once, as they soon fall.

Cheese crackers

On buttered crackers lay slices of American cheese cut thin; arrange in a baking-pan and set in the oven until the cheese is melted. Serve hot. A little cayenne sprinkled upon the crackers is liked by many.

Cheese fingers

Cut puff-paste into strips as long and as wide as your middle finger, sprinkle with a layer of cheese (grated), press upon this another strip of pastry, sprinkle with more cheese and bake in a quick oven.

Cream cheese

To every quart of rich milk you use allow a pinch of salt and a teaspoonful of rennet, taking care to buy that which is not flavored in any way. When it is solid, turn into a bag and let it drip. When it is well drained so that all the whey is taken from the curd—it may take more than a day for this, and in that case you must change the bag at the end of the first twelve hours—take it out, chop the curd fine, put it into a cheese box and press two hours. Wrap in two or three folds of tissue paper or in tinfoil, to exclude the air.

Deviled crackers and cheese

Butter thin crackers—water, butter, cream or saltine—dip each lightly into hot milk and lay in a buttered bake-dish. Sprinkle the layers with salt and paprika and every other layer with a spatter of French mustard. Cover each layer with dry, grated cheese. The topmost layer should be soaked crackers dotted with butter. Finally, pour in a cup of milk, heated, with a pinch of soda. Cover closely for the first half-hour of baking, then brown delicately.

Creamed cheese golden buck

This is a good way of using cream cheese which has become a little dry after the tinfoil has been removed.

Rub three tablespoonfuls of cream cheese to a paste with a teaspoonful of butter; salt and pepper it and work in a tablespoonful or two of cream, enough to make it quite soft. Set in a pan of boiling water over the fire and stir until hot, when add a beaten egg, cook one minute and spread upon buttered crackers.

Nonpareil Welsh rarebit

Half a pound of soft grated cheese; one gill of ale; two eggs; one tablespoonful of butter; one teaspoonful of lemon juice and the same of Worcestershire sauce and half a spoonful of celery salt. A pinch of cayenne and one of mustard.

Put a broad saucepan over the fire and melt the butter. When it hisses stir in the cheese, then, still stirring, the dry seasoning. Have ready the eggs beaten separately and very light, before you stir them together in a bowl with a few swift strokes. Add three spoonfuls of the hot mixture to these, rapidly, then pour the eggs (now warmed by the hot cheese) into the saucepan, never letting the spoon rest. In one minute more add the sauce and lemon juice and put upon rounds of hot, buttered toast.

STUFFED EGGS

FONDU OF CHEESE

COVERED CHEESE DISH FOR LIMBURGER, ETC.

CHEESE AND EGG-ENTREES]

Macaroni in cheese shell

Break macaroni into two-inch lengths and boil until tender in plenty of salted water; then drain and blanch by pouring cold water over it. After it has been blanched cut into pieces not over a half inch long. Have ready a cheese-shell, one from which the cheese has been thoroughly scooped out. These shells, which are frequently thrown away, make a nice receptacle for serving macaroni. Stand the shell on a piece of waxed paper and this in a baking-pan. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter and two of flour in the saucepan, mix and add a pint of milk, stir until boiling, mix in the cold macaroni and stir over the fire until it is just heated through; add a teaspoonful of salt and saltspoonful of pepper and pour the mixture into the shell; cover with a piece of greased paper and leave in the oven fifteen minutes. Lift the shell carefully, putting it on a round plate and send to the table. This process imparts a most delicate cheese flavor and makes a sightly dish. If baked too long, it will become soft and fall apart. For that reason the macaroni must be hot when poured into the shell. If the shell is carefully cleaned, it may be used several times.

Cream celery in Edam cheese shell

Cut the cleaned celery stalks into inch-lengths and cook until tender in boiling water, slightly salted. For three cupfuls of the cut celery allow a pint of white sauce, using the water in which the celery was cooked, with the cream, as the liquid. Turn into the shell of an Edam cheese, cover with half a cupful of fine cracker-crumbs, mixed with two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and let it brown in the oven. Send around powdered cheese with this dish.

Cheese rings

(Contributed)

Prepare a dough as for cheese straws, but cut it out with a doughnut cutter, brown slightly in a moderate oven. Draw several cheese straws through the opening in each ring and serve with salad.

Baked cheese

(Contributed)

Dissolve three ounces of butter in a gill of hot water. Melt three ounces each of American and Gruyère cheese. Stir all together until creamy, then add enough sifted flour to make a stiff paste and the beaten yolks of two eggs. Mix the whole thoroughly. Mold with two buttered tablespoons, slip on greased paper, and when all are molded set in a moderate oven. When slightly brown brush them over with the whites of the eggs beaten stiff. Return to the oven for one minute. Take up on a hot dish, dust with pepper and fill the center with grated cheese.

Cheese cutlets

(Contributed)

To the well-beaten yolks of three eggs add one tablespoonful of cream and one ounce of grated Parmesan cheese and season with mace and cayenne. Beat until very light and add one tablespoonful of Béchamel sauce. Pour into a buttered pan and steam over hot water until firm. When cold cut in shapes with a fancy cutter, dredge with grated cheese and fry in boiling fat to a delicate brown. Serve at once on fried bread.

Cheese dates

Cut large dates two-thirds around lengthwise, and extract the seeds, leaving the back of each uncut to form a hinge. Fill them with cream cheese rubbed soft with butter, bring the sides together to hold in the filling, and pile upon a glass dish.

They are a nice accompaniment to afternoon tea.

THE TOAST FAMILY

Toast, pure and simple

Pare the crust from thin slices of bread, cut each slice in two and toast to a golden brown over a clear fire; butter lightly; pile together and throw a napkin over them. The sooner they are eaten the better. This toast is the accompaniment to scores of breakfast and luncheon dishes.

Brown bread toast

Is especially good and goes well with oysters and certain salads.

Deviled toast

Is best when made of stale whole wheat or of graham bread. Toast as just directed and spread with a mixture made by creaming together a great spoonful of butter with a quarter-teaspoonful, each, of lemon juice, dry mustard and paprika. Sift, if you like, dry grated cheese over each round of toast thus deviled and set for one minute upon the upper grating of a hot oven. Eat at once.

Tomato toast

Make a pint of well-seasoned tomato sauce. Toast crustless slices of bread; butter and dip each slice in hot, salted milk, then put the slices in layers in a pudding dish. Put a spoonful of tomato sauce on each layer, and when the dish is full, pour the remaining sauce over all. Cover and set in the oven for ten minutes, then send to the table. It will be found very good.

Celery toast

Stew inch-lengths of celery until soft; run through a vegetable press; mix with a thin white sauce, seasoning with paprika, salt and a dash of onion juice; boil up once and put into a pudding dish with alternate layers of lightly toasted bread which have been dipped into the salted water poured off from the boiled celery. Cover and set in the oven for ten minutes, then serve in the bake-dish. A pleasant accompaniment to chicken or veal croquettes.

Sandwiched toast

Cut bread into very thin slices and remove all the crusts. Butter lightly, and between every two slices lay an extremely thin shaving of chicken or cold roast veal. Press the slices of bread firmly together, lay on a toaster and toast each to a delicate brown. Serve at once. These are especially nice with cucumber salad.

Toasted crackers

Butter seafoam or snowflake crackers and dust with celery salt and a little paprika. Set in the oven until very hot, then serve.

Toasted anchovy crackers

Spread crackers with anchovy paste and set in the oven until very hot before sending to the table.

Anchovy toast

Cut thin slices of bread into rounds; toast delicately on both sides, lay a coiled anchovy on each round and set in the oven for three minutes to heat.

LUNCHEON VEGETABLES

Hashed potatoes, browned

Pare, wash and cut eight fine potatoes into small cubes, not more than half an inch square. Put these over the fire with two tablespoonfuls of minced celery and half as much grated onion. Salt to taste, and cook until tender but not broken; drain off the water and turn the potatoes into a buttered dish. Have ready a cupful of hot milk, into which stir a large tablespoonful of butter rubbed into one of flour. Do not cook them together, but add a tablespoonful of finely-minced parsley, and pour over the potatoes. Cover and bake fifteen minutes, then brown upon the upper grating of your oven. Serve in the bake-dish.

The celery and onion impart a most agreeable flavor to the dish.

Potato scallop

Work gradually into your cold mashed potato a cupful of warmed milk (in which has been dissolved a pinch of soda) until you have a smooth mixture; season with pepper and salt, add an egg beaten very light, and bake briskly in a well-greased pudding dish. Serve in the dish before it has time to fall.

Potato chips

Pare, slice very thin with a sharp knife and throw into ice water for an hour. Dry between two towels, and cook until delicately colored in deep, boiling cottolene or the best salad oil, slightly salted. Drain perfectly dry, toss upon hot tissue paper for an instant and serve in a deep dish lined with a napkin, which is drawn over the potatoes.

Potato strips

Prepare in the same way, after cutting into long, thin strips, the length of the potato.

Potatoes on the half-shell

Bake large, smooth potatoes of uniform size until they yield to the pinching fingers. Divide each carefully in half, lengthwise; scrape out the interior, taking care not to break the skin; mash the potato with a little hot milk and melted butter until you can beat it to a cream; salt and pepper, beat in two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese (Parmesan is best) for two cupfuls of potato, and return to the waiting shells. Set in the oven until hot through and slightly browned. Serve in the skins.

They are very good.

Potato puff

Beat a cupful of mashed potato to a soft, creamy mass, with a cupful of warm milk and an even tablespoonful of butter. Have ready two eggs, whipped light, and add to the “cream.” Pepper and salt to your liking; turn into a warmed and buttered pudding dish; set in a quick oven and bake, covered, for half an hour, then brown. Serve at once before it falls.

Potato drop cakes

Pare, wash and grate six good-sized raw potatoes; press out the water, add three well-beaten eggs and a heaping tablespoonful of flour, with salt to taste. Beat well, and drop by the great spoonful in deep, hot cottolene or other fat. Fry to a delicate brown.

Sweet potatoes au gratin

Peel and slice cold, boiled sweet potatoes. Grease a pudding dish, put a layer of potatoes in the bottom of it, sprinkle with salt, pepper, sugar and bits of butter. Put in more potatoes, sprinkle these as you did the others, and when the dish is full pour over the contents a gill of boiling water, in which a tablespoonful of butter has been melted. Strew with fine crumbs, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and bake, covered, for twenty minutes. Uncover and brown.

Sweet potato puff

Into two cupfuls of boiled and mashed sweet potatoes beat three tablespoonfuls of melted butter, a cupful of milk and four beaten eggs. Salt to taste, beat hard and turn into a greased pudding dish. Bake to a golden brown.

Pea pancakes

Open a can of green peas several hours before you wish to use them, drain in a colander and cover with cold water until you are ready to cook them. Boil tender in water slightly salted, drain, and while hot rub through a colander or vegetable press. Work in a teaspoonful of butter, with pepper and salt to taste. Stir for a minute, and let the paste get cold. Beat two eggs light and add to the cold paste, alternately with a cupful of milk. Sift half a teaspoonful of baking powder twice with four tablespoonfuls of flour, and stir into the mixture.

Drop upon a soapstone griddle as you would griddle cakes. Eat while hot, as a vegetable. Peas left over from yesterday are nice made up in this way.

Buttered rice

This, too, is a nice “made-over entrée.” Boil rice in the usual way, and, after draining well, press while warm into a bowl or mold. Next day turn it out carefully upon a pie plate and set in a quick oven. When it is hot all through draw to the door of the oven and butter abundantly. Shut the oven door and brown lightly. Butter again and sift a thick coating of grated cheese (Parmesan, if you have it) over all. Leave in the oven for a few minutes to melt the cheese, and heap irregularly with a meringue of the whites of two eggs beaten up with a pinch of celery salt. Brown very lightly, slip a spatula under the mold and transfer carefully to a hot platter.

It is a pretty yet a simple side dish, good and easily made.

Tomatoes farcies

Carefully peel large, firm tomatoes, and scoop out the centers. In the hollow thus left in each tomato put a layer of minced ham. Set the tomatoes in a bake-pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper, put a bit of butter upon the top of each and cook for ten minutes. Then drop upon the mince in each tomato a raw egg; dust with salt and pepper and cook until the eggs are “set.”

Tomato caps and saucers

Cut the tops from large, ripe tomatoes, and scoop out the insides with a small spoon. Keep these insides for the sauce, to be used later. Make a mince of cold roast beef or mutton, moisten it with a rich gravy, season to taste and half fill the hollowed tomatoes with this mixture. Set in a covered roasting-pan and bake for twenty minutes in a steady oven. Meanwhile, strain the tomato pulp, heat it and make of it a sauce thickened with two teaspoonfuls, each, of flour and butter, rubbed to a paste. Season to taste. Toast rounds of crustless bread, lay these on a platter and pour the tomato sauce over and around them. Keep hot until the tomatoes are ready. When these have cooked for twenty minutes remove the cover of the roaster and drop into each half-filled tomato a raw egg. Replace the cover and bake just long enough to “set” the eggs. Upon each round of toast lay a stuffed tomato, sprinkle with pepper and salt and send to the table.

Scallop of tomatoes and eggs

Into a pint of stewed tomatoes stir a generous cupful of fine bread crumbs, a tablespoonful of melted butter, a half teaspoonful of sugar, pepper and salt to taste. Mix thoroughly and turn into a greased pudding dish. Upon the top of this scallop break as many eggs as will lie upon it side by side. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and bits of butter and bake until the eggs are set.

Rice and cheese pudding

Boil a cup of rice until each grain is tender and stands alone. Now beat in gradually five whipped eggs and a cup of milk, in which have been stirred two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese. Stir over the fire for a minute and pour the mixture into a greased pudding dish. Bake in a good oven for half an hour.

Pilau of green peppers

Cut green peppers lengthwise, removing the seeds with care, lest they make the green shells too hot. Fill the halves with boiled rice, into which has been stirred a tablespoonful of melted butter for a cupful of the boiled rice, and two tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese, with salt to taste. Mound the rice smoothly and high, and after the pilau has cooked ten minutes in a covered pan brown lightly. Serve hot.

Scallop of sweet peppers and ham

Cut each pepper lengthwise into quarters and remove the seeds carefully, lay in iced water for fifteen minutes, then drain. Cut each quarter in half. Butter a pudding dish and put in the bottom of it a layer of minced ham, on top of this a layer of cut peppers; sprinkle thickly with fine crumbs and moisten all thoroughly with seasoned stock. Now put in more ham, another layer of peppers and crumbs, liberally dotted with bits of butter and sprinkled with salt. Bake, covered, in a good oven for half an hour, then uncover and cook ten minutes longer.

Buttered rice with peppers

Cook an even cupful of rice fast in two quarts of salted boiling water for twenty minutes, or until tender, but not broken. Drain in a colander, and set in an open oven to dry off for five minutes. Have ready one large, or two small green sweet peppers, seeded carefully and chopped fine. Put a heaping tablespoonful of butter in a frying-pan; when it hisses add the minced peppers; toss and stir over the fire until smoking hot all through. Put the rice into a dish and pour the contents of the frying-pan all over it, loosening the mass with a fork to allow the sauce to penetrate it.

Boston baked beans

Soak one quart of beans over night in warm—not hot—water. In the morning cook them until the skin curls on a bean when you blow upon it. Pack them in an earthen pot. Score the skin of a pound of streaked salt pork, and almost bury it in the beans. Pour over this one dessertspoonful of molasses, mixed with as much vinegar, a good pinch of pepper and a teaspoonful of mixed mustard. Cover closely and bake six hours in a good oven.

Baked beans and tomatoes

Soak and boil as directed in the last recipe. Then put the beans into a deep pudding dish; bury a piece of pork (parboiled) in the center and pour over them a large cupful of stewed and strained tomatoes seasoned with pepper, sugar, onion juice and a good lump of butter, but not thickened. Cover closely and cook for three hours, if the dish be large.

Fried cucumbers

Peel and slice cucumbers and lay in a dressing of equal parts of oil and vinegar for ten minutes. Drain and dip in beaten egg, roll in cracker crumbs and fry in deep cottolene or other fat. Drain and serve hot.

Mushrooms on toast

Peel and broil fresh mushrooms, spread them with butter, dust with salt and pepper, and serve them on rounds of toast. Or you may cut the mushrooms in quarters, put them in a double boiler with a tablespoonful of butter and cook until tender. They may then be seasoned to taste and poured, sauce and all, on rounds or triangles of crustless toast.

Baked mushrooms

Peel and stem large mushrooms. Line a deep bake-dish with thin slices of toast, each of which has been dipped for an instant in seasoned beef stock. Fill the dish with layers of mushrooms, sprinkling each layer with salt, paprika, and bits of butter. When the dish is full, pour over all a gill of stock, and bake, covered, for twenty minutes. Uncover and cook for five minutes before sending to the table.

Dried mushrooms and eggs

Wash the dried mushrooms, boil until tender and drain the water off. Put into a pan to fry in butter for about ten minutes, sprinkle a very little caraway seed on them, and salt to taste. Break a few eggs over them.

Sauté green tomatoes

Select firm, smooth tomatoes that are fully grown, but which have not begun to redden. Wash, and without paring, cut into disks a quarter of an inch thick. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and sugar, dust with flour and sauté in hot butter. Drain and garnish with thin slices of fried bacon.

SANDWICHES

The day has passed and forever when a sandwich meant two thick slices of bread, enclosing what the boys call a “hunk” of cold meat. Now the popular delicacy is made of bread cut to wafer-like thinness and shorn of all suggestion of crust. The “filling” may be simple or composite, as taste may dictate, and the ingenious housewife will devise many delicious combinations to be spread between the two layers of her sandwiches.

Ham sandwiches

Chop lean ham fine and beat into each cupful of the minced meat a tablespoonful of salad oil, a teaspoonful of vinegar, a saltspoonful of French mustard, six olives chopped fine, and a teaspoonful of minced parsley. Work all to a paste and spread on thin slices of white bread.

Chicken sandwiches

Mince the white meat of a roast chicken and mix it with half a can of French mushrooms, chopped fine, and a half cupful of chopped English walnuts. Season to taste with pepper and salt, and moisten with melted butter. Put the mixture between slices of whole wheat bread.

Brunette sandwiches

Slice Boston brown bread very thin, butter lightly, and spread with Neufchâtel or with cottage cheese. Have ready crisp lettuce-leaves, dip each in a bowl of French salad dressing, then lay on the already spread brown bread. Press another slice of buttered brown bread on this, and the sandwich is ready. These sandwiches must be kept in a moist atmosphere until it is time to serve them.

Lamb or mutton sandwiches

Mince cold roast lamb, or tender mutton fine, and season with salt, pepper and tomato catsup. Add a few minced olives and make all into a paste with mayonnaise dressing. Spread between thin slices of bread. Cut these sandwiches into diamond shapes.

Beef sandwiches

Chop rare cold roast beef very fine, taking care to use only the lean portions of the meat. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and a saltspoonful of horseradish. Mix and make into sandwiches with thinly-sliced graham bread. These may be eaten by persons of delicate digestion, and are both appetizing and nourishing.

Egg sandwiches

Mash the yolks of hard-boiled eggs to a powder and moisten with olive oil and a few drops of vinegar. Work to a paste, add salt, pepper and French mustard to taste, with a drop or two of Tabasco sauce. Now chop the whites of the eggs as fine as possible (or until they are like a coarse powder) and mix them with the yolk paste. If more seasoning is necessary, add it before spreading the mixture upon sliced graham bread.

Walnut sandwiches

Shell English walnuts. Blanch and chop, and to every tablespoonful of nuts allow a good half tablespoonful of cream cheese. Rub well together and spread on thin slices of crustless white or graham bread.

Peanut sandwiches

Shell and skin freshly-roasted peanuts and roll them to fine crumbs on a pastry-board. Add salt to taste, and mix the powdered nuts with enough fresh cream cheese to make a paste that can be easily spread on unbuttered bread. Keep in a cold, damp place until wanted.

Water cress sandwiches

Season water cress with salt, pepper, and a few drops of vinegar, and chop coarsely. Mix with creamy cottage cheese and spread on thinly-sliced white bread.

Cottage cheese sandwiches

Cottage cheese, spread upon a slice of buttered bread, and covered with a leaf of lettuce dipped in oil and vinegar, then with the second buttered slice, makes a nice relish.

Sardine sandwiches

Wipe the fish, skin, take out the backbone and rub to a smooth paste with a little butter and lemon juice. Add a dash of cayenne, or a few drops of Tabasco sauce, and spread between thin slices of brown bread.

Salmon sandwiches

(Contributed)

Remove the skin and bones from a can of salmon, shred with a silver fork and add the crumbled yolks of six hard-boiled eggs. Season to taste and add any good salad dressing. Spread on thin slices of brown bread.

Olive sandwiches

(Contributed)

Take equal parts of large and stuffed olives. Mince fine, mix with a little thick mayonnaise, and spread on thin slices of buttered bread.

Salad sandwiches

(Contributed)

Take finely-chopped chicken or veal, season with salt, pepper and a dash of onion juice. Add a little mayonnaise and spread the mixture on thin slices of bread lined with crisp lettuce leaves.

Nasturtium sandwiches

(Contributed)

Butter thin slices of white bread, place between them the petals of nasturtium flowers or the very young leaves. Place the flowers so that they will show along the edges of the bread and decorate the plate with the leaves and flowers.

Raisin sandwiches

(Contributed)

Make a paste of large seeded raisins and candied lemon peel chopped fine and moistened with lemon juice. Spread on lightly-buttered thin slices of bread. Serve with a cup of good tea.

Chocolate sandwiches

(Contributed)

Melt a small piece of butter in a saucepan; grate into it bitter chocolate and season with granulated sugar. When the chocolate is thoroughly melted take from the fire and cool. Moisten with a little thick cream and spread on thin slices of slightly buttered bread.

Hash sandwiches

(Contributed)

Cut pieces of bread into uniform sizes, dip them in beaten egg, to which a little milk and a pinch of salt has been added. Fry to a light brown in hot butter. Make a highly-seasoned hash of chopped meat and potatoes. Cook in stock until heated through. Arrange toast on platter, putting a spoonful of hash on each piece and covering with another piece of toast.

Date and nut sandwiches

(Contributed)

Remove the stones and the thick skin which surrounds them from the dates, then chop them fine. Add half as much finely-chopped English walnut or pecan meats; moisten with creamed butter, add a pinch of salt and spread between two thin slices of bread.

Fig and nut sandwiches

(Contributed)

For fig sandwiches use the recipe for dates and nuts, substituting figs for dates.

Ginger sandwiches

(Contributed)

Cut thin slices of plain gingerbread. Spread with soft cream cheese. Put between the slices a thin slice of preserved ginger.

Marmalade sandwiches

(Contributed)

Toast slices of bread, spread while hot with butter, fill with a thick marmalade and serve hot.

Cheese and nut sandwiches

(Contributed)

Take equal parts of grated cheese and English walnuts pounded to a meal and moisten with thick cream. Season to taste and spread between thin slices of buttered bread.

Lettuce sandwiches

(Contributed)

Lay between two thin slices of buttered bread a crisp lettuce leaf, on which has been spread a thin layer of salad dressing.

Sweetbread sandwiches

(Contributed)

Put cold boiled sweetbreads through a potato ricer, moisten with half as much whipped cream, season with salt, cayenne and lemon juice. Spread on thin slices of buttered bread and cut in fancy shapes.

Lobster sandwiches

(Contributed)

Season the finely-chopped meat of a lobster with a few drops of Tabasco sauce, lemon juice and oil and spread upon thinly-buttered bread.

Hot ham sandwiches

(Contributed)

Butter thin slices of bread. Broil some very thin slices of ham, put between the slices of bread and serve hot.

Tongue sandwiches

(Contributed)

Make a dressing one part mustard and five parts butter, add salt and pepper to taste and a little cayenne. Butter the bread with the dressing and lay between the slices thin slices of cold tongue.

Mint sandwiches

(Contributed)

Pulverize one tablespoonful of mint leaves; pour over them two tablespoonfuls of boiling water. Let it stand for about a half an hour. Soak half an ounce of gelatine in one tablespoonful of water. Dissolve it over hot water. Strain the mint into the gelatine and when cool add a pint of rich whipped cream and a pinch of salt. Let this stand in a mold until perfectly cold and firm. Slice in thin slices and put between dainty slices of bread.

Anchovy sandwiches

(Contributed)

Spread thin slices of bread with a very little butter. Cover this with a thin layer of anchovy paste. Mince finely some olives and use for filling.

Club sandwiches

(Contributed)

Toast slices of bread a nice brown, and while hot spread with butter and put between the slices a lettuce leaf, some cold baked chicken cut in thin slices, a few chopped olives and pickles, some slices of hot crisp bacon, a layer of salad dressing, another lettuce leaf and the other slice of toast.

These are very nice for Sunday evening supper.

Tomato sandwiches

Slice graham, or, better still, whole-wheat bread, thin, pare off the crust, butter on one side, spread with minced ripe tomatoes—drain off superfluous juice and sprinkle with salt, pepper and sugar. Serve at once. The tomatoes should be ice-cold and minced quickly. They are delicious and popular.

TEMPTING PREFIXES TO LUNCHEON

Grape fruit

This is among the most popular of appetizers to be served at a luncheon. Cut the fruit in half, crosswise, and with a sharp knife remove all the bitter white membrane that divides the lobes. Fill the space thus left with as much granulated sugar as the fruit will hold. Set on the ice until very cold.

Fruit baskets

Cut oranges in half so cleverly as to leave a wide strip from the upper half of the rind attached to the lower, like the handle of a basket, or the “bale” of a bucket. Should you break it at one side you can, after filling the cup or basket, put a neat stitch in and tie a bow of narrow ribbon over the join.

Empty the lower cup entirely to the white inner lining. Set on the ice while you prepare the filling. Cut the orange pulp into neat, clean bits; mix with crystallized cherries, atoms of marrons glacés or of blanched nuts, add fine white sugar and a little liqueur, or if you prefer, sherry. Fill the baskets and leave half buried in cracked ice until you are ready to set them on the table.

Set each basket upon a chilled plate, laying an orange spoon beside it.

If you do not care to take the trouble of leaving the handle on, make bowls of the halved fruit. They are a delicious introduction to a company luncheon.

Oyster cocktails

Bury small oysters in the ice until needed. Have the tall, slender glasses in which they are to be served laid in the ice also that they may be thoroughly chilled. Make a sauce of two tablespoonfuls of tomato catsup, a dozen drops of Tabasco sauce, the juice of a lemon, a saltspoonful of grated horseradish and a dash, each, of salt and paprika. Add two tablespoonfuls of oyster liquor, mix thoroughly and set on the ice until very cold.

Put five oysters in the bottom of each chilled glass, pour the sauce upon them, and serve.

Raw oysters

Lay, when opened, on the deeper of the halved shells that the liquor may not escape. Have a bed of finely-cracked ice in each plate, fix five oysters in each bed, with a piece of lemon in the middle. Pass grated horseradish in vinegar with them, and small crackers, or buttered bars of graham bread.

Raw clams

Are served in the same way.

Caviar crisps

Remove the crusts from slices of white bread and cut into strips an inch wide and three inches long. Toast to a light brown and set aside to cool. Open a small can of caviar and rub into the contents a tablespoonful of salad oil and a teaspoonful of lemon juice. If the paste is not soft enough add more oil. Spread the crisp toast with this paste, garnish with sprigs of parsley, and serve cold.

Clam wafers

Chop a dozen soft clams very, very fine, and season with pepper and a few drops of lemon juice. Add to them the beaten yolk of one egg and enough finely-rolled cracker crumbs to make a soft paste. Spread seafoam wafers thickly with this paste, lay them in a baking pan and set in the oven for five or ten minutes, or until the wafers and paste are very hot and the batter is quite stiff. Serve at once.

Anchovy toast

Cut the crust from a loaf of graham bread and slice, then cut each slice in half and toast on both sides. Spread lightly with butter. Open a jar of anchovies and lay one of the tiny fish on each strip of graham toast, squeeze a few drops of lemon juice upon it, sprinkle with paprika and set in the oven until very hot.

Anchovy bars

Butter narrow saltine wafers, spread them with anchovy paste, and set them in the oven long enough to become very hot. Serve two on each plate.

Deviled crackers

Butter seafoam wafers, sprinkle lightly with paprika, then drop upon them a very little grated Parmesan cheese, and set in the oven until they brown delicately about the edges.

Hot-house grapes

Cut the larger bunches into smaller, all of uniform size. Lay on ice until just before luncheon when, tie a dainty bow of ribbon of a harmonizing color with the grapes, upon each bunch.

Jack Frost grapes

Divide a large bunch of selected grapes into smaller bunches of even proportion. With a camel’s-hair brush varnish each grape thoroughly with the white of an egg. Dust carefully with granulated sugar. Tie to each cluster a bow of narrow white ribbon.

SALADS

In a Familiar Talk, some pages back, I have alluded to the “Woman with a Way,” who will not use oil in salad dressing. A story which stuck to an eminent magazine publisher to the end of his busy career was of a new cook whose salads won the unqualified approval of her master, who was a gourmand in a gentlemanly way. She had been serving perfect mayonnaises and well-adjusted French dressings for a fortnight, when one of the children fell ill and the doctor prescribed a dose of castor oil. The mother recollected distinctly the purchase of a bottle not long before, but it could not be found. Bridget heard the inquiry going the rounds and came to the front.

“Castor ile—is it ye are wanting? And it is mesilf that was thinking this morning, as I had a right to spake to yez, mem, to order more. I put the lasht dhrop inter the castor yisterday. Salad every day uses a dale of ile.”

Bridget knows better now, and her mistress’s taste is so far cultivated by much use of salad oil that she insists upon having it “pure.”

An airy waitress, in the second day of her trial week in my household, complimented me patronizingly upon the judgment which led me to select “the best brand.”

“There’s no better oil on the market to my way of thinking than the Borducks!” holding a bottle up to let the light fall through the slow liquid amber of “Huile de Bordeaux.”

The oil of Bordeaux is good, when not doctored upon this side of the water. There are olive groves in other foreign lands that send thousands of gallons of pure oil to America to be mixed with cheaper oils, returned to the bottles bearing foreign labels, and palmed off upon the most credulous public upon the globe as the yield of the royal olive.

Pure salad oil, when it has any perceptible odor, should have a faint “nutty” perfume; it should taste like the ripe olives from which it was expressed; in color it should be palest, tenderest green; it should blend readily and harmoniously with condiments and with the body of the salad.

French dressing

Rub the inside of a bowl with a clove of garlic. Measure into a bowl six tablespoonfuls of oil, two of vinegar, two saltspoonfuls of salt, and one of pepper. Mix thoroughly before pouring over the salad.

Mayonnaise dressing

Into a chilled soup plate drop the yolk of an egg drained free of all the white, squeeze upon it a teaspoonful of lemon juice and stir in with a silver fork until well mixed. Now add gradually a few drops of salad oil, stirring steadily. As the dressing thickens, add the oil more freely until you have used half a pint. Season with a dash of paprika, a half teaspoonful of salt, a saltspoonful of mustard, and a generous tablespoonful of vinegar.

In making your chicken salad allow a cupful of celery cut into bits to every two cups of the chicken dice, and make a cupful of mayonnaise for five cupfuls of the salad.

Cream dressing

Beat three eggs, yolks and whites together, until they are very light; add one teaspoonful of salt, a pinch of red pepper, half a saltspoonful of mustard mixed with a little water, and, lastly, three or four tablespoonfuls of rich, sweet cream.

Sour cream salad dressing

Have a cupful of rich sour cream very cold, then beat hard for five minutes, adding, as you do so, a tablespoonful of powdered sugar and a half teaspoonful of lemon juice. This dressing is delicious served with chilled cucumbers, sliced thin.

Boiled salad dressing

Into three well-beaten eggs stir a cupful of vinegar, a tablespoonful of sugar, two saltspoonfuls of salt, a dash of paprika, and a small teaspoonful of French mustard. Beat thoroughly, turn into a saucepan, stir steadily until the boil begins, and add a teaspoonful of butter. When this melts remove the dressing from the fire. Beat for two minutes and set aside to cool. When cold put in the ice-box, where it will keep a week or ten days.

Chicken salad

Cut cold, boiled chicken into small dice. With two cupfuls of this meat mix a cupful of celery cut into dice. Sprinkle all with salt and pepper. Into three tablespoonfuls of oil stir a tablespoonful of vinegar. Pour this over the chicken and celery and toss until well mixed. Line a chilled bowl with crisp lettuce leaves, fill with the chicken salad and pour mayonnaise dressing over all.

Turkey salad

Is made in like manner, rejecting the dark meat of the legs, unless it is very tender.

Lobster salad

Pick out the meat from a fresh, well-boiled lobster. Cut with a sharp knife into small dice, taking care not to tear the meat. Set on ice while you make a good mayonnaise, which, in turn, must go on the ice. Have ready one-third as much celery as you have lobster, cut into half-inch lengths. Mix together in a bowl, sprinkle with cayenne and salt and stir lightly into it a cupful of mayonnaise. Line a chilled bowl with crisp lettuce, arrange the salad within this; garnish with the lobsters’ claws and hard-boiled eggs cut into lengths lengthwise. Set on ice until it goes to table.

Crab salad

Is made in the same way, omitting the eggs from the garnish.

Oyster salad

Choose small oysters for this salad. If you can not get these, cut each oyster in half, but do not chop them. Drain the liquor from the oysters, and to every cupful of these add a cupful of crisp white celery cut into half-inch bits sprinkled lightly with salt. Mix and stir mayonnaise dressing through the mixture. Line a chilled bowl with lettuce leaves, fill with the oyster salad and pour a rich mayonnaise over all. Garnish with stoned olives.

Shrimp salad

For this dish you can use either the fresh or the canned shrimps. If the former, they must be shelled. If the latter, they must be taken from the can several hours before they are to be used and set on the ice. Line a salad bowl with crisp lettuce leaves, lay the shrimps upon these and cover with mayonnaise dressing. Serve at once.

Shrimp and tomato salad

Cut the tops from ripe tomatoes and remove the insides. Fill the tomato shells with cold boiled shrimps, with their backs up; set each tomato upon a leaf of lettuce and pour mayonnaise dressing over all. A pretty salad.

Crab and tomato salad

Carefully strip the skin from six large, firm tomatoes, and remove the centers. Fill the hollowed vegetables with the chopped and seasoned meat of six boiled crabs. Set the stuffed tomatoes in the ice for several hours. Lay on crisp lettuce leaves, and put a spoonful of mayonnaise dressing upon each tomato.

Shrimp salad and tomato aspic

Strain the liquor from a can of tomatoes through coarse muslin. Put over the fire, season with salt and paprika and the strained juice of a small onion. When it boils skim well and pour over half a box of Coxe’s gelatine, which has been soaked three hours in a cup of cold water. Set away to form into a jelly.

When ready to use it line a salad dish with lettuce, arrange the contents of a can of shrimps (strained) upon the leaves, and spoonfuls of tomato jelly upon the shrimps. Send around French salad dressing with it.

Salmon mayonnaise

Boil eight eggs hard, throw into cold water; peel and lay in ice. Make a cup of mayonnaise and rub into it five large clean-cut pieces of canned salmon. Slice the eggs, lay them on lettuce leaves and pour over them the salmon mayonnaise.

Sardine salad

Drain the oil from a box of sardines and squeeze three drops of lemon juice on each fish. Lay crisp lettuce leaves in iced water for half an hour, then shake free of moisture and lay on a chilled platter. On each leaf lay a sardine, and upon this pour a spoonful of thick mayonnaise dressing. Garnish the edge of the platter with cold boiled beets cut into star shapes. Serve with crackers and cream cheese.

Egg salad with sardine mayonnaise

Boil eight eggs hard, throw into cold water; peel and lay in the ice. Make a cup of mayonnaise and rub into it four sardines that have been skinned and mashed to a paste. Halve the eggs, lay them on crisp lettuce leaves and pour a spoonful of the sardine mayonnaise over all.

Egg salad with boiled dressing

Beat smooth the yolks of three eggs with one teaspoonful of sugar, a half teaspoonful of mustard, one-half teaspoonful of salt, dash of celery salt, one cup of vinegar and one cup of milk, added alternately to prevent curdling, and two tablespoonfuls of oil; put into double boiler and cook to the consistency of thin custard, stirring all the time. Let it get perfectly cold. Line a chilled dish with lettuce leaves, heap hard-boiled eggs, cut into quarters, upon these and pour over them the dressing.

Simple lettuce salad

Unless you have an exceptionally deft and cool-fingered cook or waiter, make the salad on the table yourself. Have, first, a finger-bowl passed quietly to you, into which dip your fingers, drying them on your napkin. While you do this the waitress or butler should set before you the oil, vinegar, pepper and salt, with salad spoon and fork and a small bowl, in the bottom of which is a tablespoonful of finely-minced green chives. If you have not these, the inside of the bowl should have been rubbed well with garlic. Mix in the bowl of the spoon a teaspoonful of salt with half as much pepper; fill the large spoon with vinegar, mixing salt and pepper well in this; turn into the mixing bowl; then fill the spoon three times with oil. Stir and toss until the ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. Two larger bowls should be ready at hand, one empty, the other heaped with crisp, cold lettuce leaves. Pick these apart lightly with the tips of your fingers and put into the empty bowl. When all are in pour the dressing over the lettuce, tossing lightly and quickly with salad fork and spoon. Pass at once with heated crackers and fancy cheese of some kind.

Lettuce and tomato salad

After tearing the lettuce apart, lay, as on a bed, tomatoes pared and sliced, or cut into eighths. Pour the dressing over them.

Salad should never be touched with one’s own knife, but divided, if need be, with the fork. It should not be necessary to remind people who know anything of the by-laws of dining and lunching as received by polite society, that it is awkward and unconventional to hash tender lettuce, celery or cress with knife and fork, clinking against the plate in a castanet accompaniment to table talk. Yet it is done in our sight and hearing almost every day.

Water cress salad

Tear apart gingerly, pile in a bowl, and pour a French dressing over it. Some like to dip it into salt, as celery is eaten, without other dressing.

Potato salad (No. 1)

Cut cold-boiled potatoes into tender slices and mix with them two raw white onions, minced, and a tablespoonful of chopped parsley. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and two tablespoonfuls of salad oil mixed with a dessertspoonful of vinegar. Toss and turn, and put into a salad bowl. Set in the ice for two hours. Just before sending to the table stir into the salad a half cupful of mayonnaise, and pour the rest of the dressing over the top of the salad.

Potato salad (No. 2)

Peel eight potatoes that have been boiled in their skins and allowed to cool. Slice the potatoes into a bowl and add to them a chopped onion, which has been scalded after it was minced. Season the potato and onion with salt and pepper to taste. Pour upon them five tablespoonfuls of oil and two of vinegar. Toss up well and let them stand an hour before serving.

Cauliflower salad

Cut a young cauliflower into clusters, boil tender, drain and lay in the ice until very cold. Arrange on leaves of lettuce and serve with mayonnaise dressing. A delicious salad.

Beet salad

Boil eight young beets tender; drain, and lay in iced water until thoroughly chilled. Drain once more and scrape off the skins. Pour into a bowl six tablespoonfuls of salad oil with one tablespoonful of vinegar, and stir into them two saltspoonfuls, each, of salt and pepper. Stir this dressing thoroughly. With a sharp knife cut the chilled beets into tiny dice of uniform size, and as you do so drop these dice into the French dressing in the bowl. When all the beets are cut, turn them over and over in the dressing that they may become well coated. Set the bowl and its contents on the ice for an hour, or until very cold. Line a chilled salad bowl with crisp lettuce leaves. Drain all the dressing from the beets into a small glass bowl. Upon each lettuce leaf put a spoonful of the beet dice. When serving, put a spoonful of dressing upon each leaf.

A macedoine salad

One cup of green peas, boiled and cold, and the same of string beans cut into half-inch lengths, well cooked and suffered to get cold. One cup of celery cut into inch-lengths. One-half cup of boiled carrots, cut into tiny dice, also cold. One cup of red beets boiled and cut into small dice. Leave all these ingredients in the ice-box until chilled and stiff. Have ready a chilled glass or silver bowl—a shallow one is best; heap the beets in the center, arrange next to them a ring of celery dice, then the beans, next the carrots, lastly the peas—all forming a mound. Pour over this a good French dressing, garnish with a wreath of nasturtium blooms about the base and set on the ice until needed. Pass, if you like, a mayonnaise dressing with it. The true salad lover will, however, prefer the French dressing alone. It is a beautiful salad and easily made. If you can not get celery in summer, substitute boiled corn cut from the cob to make the white ring.

A fruit salad

Pare four juicy, sweet oranges, peel off every bit of the white inner skin from the fruit it incloses, pull the lobes apart, and cut each into four pieces.

Scald a cupful of English walnut kernels, strip away the bitter skin and let the kernels get dry and cold. Mix with the bits of orange, set on the ice for an hour, heap in a glass salad dish lined with crisp lettuce and cover with a good mayonnaise dressing.

Some consider a tablespoonful of celery cut into small pieces an improvement to this dish.

Apple and nut salad

Scoop the inside from fine, smooth, tart apples, and fill them with a mixture of cut-up celery and walnut meats, blanched and chopped, the whole well moistened with mayonnaise. Slices of pippins are sometimes mixed with watercress and covered with French dressing, making a piquante salad that is especially good with roast duck.

Apple and celery salad

Cut enough crisp celery into small bits to make a cupful. Lay in iced water. Peel and cut four large apples into small dice, dropping these into water as you do so. Drain the celery and sprinkle it with salt. Drain the apples, mix with the celery, and pour over all a thick mayonnaise dressing. Serve very cold.

Orange salad

Peel and divide the oranges into lobes, then cut each of these into three pieces. Have ready four tablespoonfuls of blanched English walnut kernels, cold and firm, for the same number of oranges. In serving, put a leaf of lettuce upon each plate, a great spoonful of the cut oranges upon the leaf and on this last a spoonful of nut-meats. Pour a good mayonnaise over all.

Bean and beet salad

Boil a half cupful of small kidney beans. There should be a cupful when cooked. Cook until soft a pint of tender string beans, cut into inch-lengths. Boil tender four large, or six small red beets. Let all get stone-cold. Cut the beets, then, into tiny dice. In the center of a glass dish heap the beets, next the white beans, and, as an outer circle, the green. Edge with white “heart” lettuce leaves, and pour a French dressing over all.

A pretty and palatable salad.

If you use dried white beans they must be soaked for six hours before boiling.

Nasturtium salad

Cut fine the heart of a large bunch of celery, mince a tablespoonful of parsley and six blades of chives. Mix with a French dressing, stir in lightly the petals of a dozen large nasturtium blossoms; line a salad bowl with crisp lettuce, and put this mixture in the center. Garnish elaborately with nasturtium leaves and blossoms.

Dandelion salad

Pick the young tender leaves of the dandelion, wash and lay in ice water for half an hour. Drain, shake dry and pat still drier between the folds of a napkin. Turn into a chilled bowl, cover with a French dressing, toss the greens over and over in this and send at once to table.

This is very wholesome—and palatable—to those that like it!

Cabbage salad

Shred a small white cabbage very fine. Heat a gill of vinegar, add to it a tablespoonful of butter, a tablespoonful of sugar, and a dash of celery salt and white pepper. Bring to a boil, stir in the shredded cabbage, and stir until very hot. Have ready a half cupful of milk, in which a pinch of soda has been dissolved, and stir it slowly into three beaten eggs. Boil until it is like thick cream. Pour this mixture over the hot cabbage, mix well together, season to taste, and turn into a chilled bowl. Bury in the ice until very cold.

Cold slaw

Shred a white cabbage fine. Heat a cup of milk. Heat, also, a gill of vinegar, and when this last is boiling, stir into it a tablespoonful, each, of butter and sugar, a teaspoonful of celery essence, two saltspoonfuls of salt and one of pepper. When boiling hard, stir in the shredded cabbage, and as soon as this is really hot, remove it from the fire. Pour the scalding milk slowly upon two beaten eggs and cook, stirring steadily until thick, then pour upon the cabbage and toss until well mixed. Set in the ice for two hours. Serve very cold.

Cucumber salad

Select small, firm cucumbers of uniform size. Wash well in cold water. Dry thoroughly. Make two incisions in the top of the cucumber about an inch from each end and about one-half inch deep. Next cut lengthwise from one incision to the other carefully and remove the top. Scoop out the pulp and mix with salt. Then chop some celery fine (if celery is out of season substitute cabbage), and some blanched walnut meats, also chopped. After the cucumber pulp has stood about an hour in the salt drain off the water and add the celery and the nuts. Mix thoroughly with a French dressing, and about twenty minutes before serving fill up the shells, placing a piece of parsley in each end.

Cucumbers with lemon juice

Lay fresh cucumbers in the ice for twelve hours. Peel and slice very thin, and send immediately to the table covered with crushed ice. As you dish them put some of the ice on each plate and pour over the cucumbers a dressing made of two parts of salad oil and one part of lemon juice, with salt and paprika to taste.

Daisy salad

Cut two-inch rounds of cream or Neufchâtel cheese one-half inch in thickness, and place on crisp lettuce leaves. Put the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs through the vegetable-press and place a teaspoonful of this yellow powder in the center of each round. Serve mayonnaise or French dressing in a separate bowl.

Tongue salad

Make a good French dressing. Dip into it firm, crisp lettuce leaves. Have ready cold boiled tongue, cut as thin as writing paper. Lay a slice upon each leaf, and serve with heated and buttered crackers. You can substitute ham for the tongue.

Tomato aspic

Soak a half-box of gelatine in a half-pint of water for an hour. Bring to a boil the liquor drained from a quart can of tomatoes, and add to it a teaspoonful of onion juice, two teaspoonfuls of sugar, a bay leaf and a teaspoonful of minced parsley, with pepper and salt to taste. Simmer for twenty minutes, add the gelatine, stir until dissolved, and strain through flannel into a jelly mold. Serve when firm, garnished with lettuce and pour over all a mayonnaise dressing. This jelly—in culinary phrase, “aspic”—lends itself agreeably to many combinations of salad, being susceptible of countless variations.

Tomatoes with whipped cream

Carefully peel and halve ripe tomatoes and lay them on the ice for several hours. Transfer to a chilled platter, sprinkle with salt, garnish with lettuce leaves and put a great spoonful of whipped cream upon each tomato half.

Tomato and corn salad

Pour boiling water over large, smooth tomatoes to loosen the skins, and set on ice. When perfectly cold, gouge out the center of each tomato with a spoon, and fill the cavity with boiled corn cut from the cob and left to get perfectly cold; then mix with mayonnaise dressing. Arrange the tomatoes on a chilled platter lined with lettuce, and leave on ice until wanted. Pass more mayonnaise with the salad.

Tomato and peanut salad

Prepare the tomatoes as in the last recipe. Have ready a pint or more of roasted peanut meats, blanched by pouring boiling water over them, then skinned, and when cold pounded finely and mixed with mayonnaise dressing. Fill the tomatoes with this. Serve on lettuce leaves.

Iced tomato salad

(Contributed)

Cook a quart of raw tomatoes soft, strain and season with nutmeg, sugar, paprika, a pinch of grated lemon peel and salt. Freeze until firm; put a spoonful upon a crisp lettuce leaf in each plate, cover with mayonnaise and serve immediately. It is still prettier if you can freeze it in round apple-shaped molds.

Canned tomatoes may be used if you have not fresh.

Clam salad

(Contributed)

Remove the skins and black heads of cold clams. Marinade for ten minutes in a French dressing and serve on a bed of shredded lettuce.

Pear salad

(Contributed)

Peel and slice five sweet, ripe pears, sprinkle with fine sugar, and add a little maraschino or ginger syrup. Serve with a little cream. Or pare and slice enough ripe, sweet pears to make one pint; add one-half cupful of blanched and chopped almonds, one-fourth of a cupful of powdered sugar and the strained juice of two lemons. Serve in a cup of lettuce leaves made by placing together the stem end of two lettuce leaves taken from the inside of a head of lettuce.

Hot potato salad

(Contributed)

Put into a frying-pan one-fourth of a pound of bacon, cut into dice; when light brown take out and sauté in the fat a small onion cut fine. Add one-half as much vinegar as fat, a few grains of salt and cayenne and one-half as much hot stock as vinegar. Have ready the potatoes boiled in skins. Remove the skins and slice hot into the frying-pan enough to take up the liquid. Add the diced bacon, toss together and serve.

Asparagus and shrimp salad

(Contributed)

To one cupful of shrimps add two cupfuls of cold cooked asparagus tips, and toss lightly together. Season with salt and pepper. Make a dressing of the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs, rubbed through a sieve, and sufficient oil and vinegar to make the consistency of cream, using twice as much oil as vinegar. Pour over the asparagus and shrimps.

Asparagus salad

(Contributed)

Asparagus tips heaped on lettuce leaves and served with French, mayonnaise or boiled dressing, poured over all, make a very good salad.

Endive salad

(Contributed)

Use the well-blanched leaves only. Wipe these with a damp cloth. Pour over this a French dressing and serve with roasted game.

Sweetbreads and cucumber salad

(Contributed)

Marinate one pair of sweetbreads in French dressing. Chill thoroughly. Drain and mix with equal parts of sliced cucumber; cover with French dressing into which has been stirred whipped cream.

Spinach salad

(Contributed)

Select the young, tender leaves from the center of the stock; wash carefully, drain and chill and serve with French dressing.

Lenten salad

(Contributed)

Line the bottom of the salad-dish with crisp lettuce leaves. Fill the center of the dish with cold boiled or baked fish, cut into pieces, and pour over it a pint of mayonnaise dressing. Garnish with rings of hard-boiled eggs.

Apple and cress salad

(Contributed)

Pare and cut into small pieces four medium-sized apples. Pour over this a French dressing. Pick carefully the leaves from a bunch of cress. Arrange around the outside of the salad-dish and heap the apples in the center of the dish.

Strawberry salad

(Contributed)

Choose the heart from a nice head of lettuce, putting the stems together to form a cup. Put a few strawberries in the center and cover with powdered sugar and one teaspoonful of mayonnaise dressing.

Banana salad

(Contributed)

Sliced bananas, served in the same manner as the strawberries in the above recipe, make an excellent salad.

Veal salad

(Contributed)

Use equal parts of well-cooked cold veal cut into small pieces, and finely-chopped white cabbage. Marinate the veal for two hours. Drain and mix with the cabbage. Season with salt and pepper, and a little chopped pickle, and cover with mayonnaise dressing.

Cherry salad

(Contributed)

Stone a pint of large cherries, being careful not to bruise the fruit. Place a hazelnut in each cherry to preserve the form. Chill thoroughly, arrange in a salad dish on lettuce leaves and pour over all a cream mayonnaise dressing.

Peach salad

(Contributed)

Pare a quart of ripe yellow peaches, and cut into thin slices; slice very thin a half cupful of blanched almonds. Mix the fruit and nuts with two-thirds of a cupful of mayonnaise, to which has been added one-third of a cupful of whipped cream. Serve immediately on lettuce leaves.

Ham salad

(Contributed)

Mix equal portions of minced, well-cooked ham and English walnuts or almonds. Serve with mayonnaise on lettuce leaves.

Sweetbreads with celery salad

(Contributed)

Wash the sweetbreads thoroughly and let them stand in cold water half an hour. Boil in salted water twenty minutes and then put in cold water again for a few minutes, to harden. To one cupful of minced sweetbreads add one cupful of diced celery and one-half cupful of chopped nuts. Cover well with mayonnaise dressing to which some whipped cream has been added.

Green bean salad

(Contributed)

Select fresh string beans and boil until tender in salted water. Or use a good quality of canned string beans. Arrange on a dish and serve with mayonnaise dressing.

Pea salad

(Contributed)

Drain and press through a sieve a can of green peas. Dissolve one box of gelatine in one-fourth of a cup of cold water and stir over a hot fire until heated. Take from the fire and add one-fourth teaspoonful of onion juice, one-half teaspoonful of salt, and a dash of pepper. Serve very cold with the following dressing: Put into a double boiler the yolks of two eggs, two tablespoonfuls of stock and two tablespoonfuls of oil. Stir until thick, take from the fire and add slowly one tablespoonful of tarragon vinegar, one chopped olive and two teaspoonfuls of chopped parsley.

Nut salad

Blanch almond kernels, and when cold and crisp shred into shavings. Mix with these an equal quantity of English walnuts, broken into bits, and pecan kernels. Stir a good mayonnaise dressing into the mixture and heap within curled lettuce leaves.

LUNCHEON FRUITS, COOKED AND RAW

Stewed rhubarb

Select only good, firm stalks, and reject those that are withered. Lay them in cold water for an hour, and cut into half-inch pieces. Put them over the fire in a porcelain-lined saucepan and strew each layer plentifully with sugar. Pour in enough water to cover all, and bring very slowly to a boil. Let the rhubarb stew gently until it is very tender, then remove from the fire. When cold, serve with plain cake.

Rhubarb and raisins

For every cupful of raw rhubarb cut into inch lengths add a third as much of raisins seeded and cut in half. Cook until soft, as directed in last recipe.

Rhubarb and dates

Stone a quarter of a pound of dates, cover with hot water, and cook five minutes. Add three cupfuls of raw rhubarb, cut into inch lengths, and cook, closely covered, until the rhubarb is tender. Sweeten to taste and set aside to cool in a covered bowl, after which set on ice until needed.

Rhubarb and figs

Soak a quarter-pound of figs in warm water for two hours. Cut into small pieces and cook as previously directed with three cups of raw rhubarb, cut into inch lengths, until the rhubarb is tender. Eat cold.

This dish is cooling to the blood, gently laxative and pleasing to the taste.

Stewed gooseberries

Remove the tops and stems from one quart of gooseberries, wash and drain. Put them into a saucepan with barely enough boiling water to cover them. Let them stew until tender. Dissolve one cupful of sugar in one-half cupful of water and boil to a syrup, then mix it with the fruit and set away to cool.

Agate-nickel-steel ware is altogether the best in the market for stewing acid fruits. They should never be cooked in tin or in iron, and unless copper has just been cleaned with vinegar to remove all suspicion of verdigris, the use of it is dangerous. I can not say too much of the ware I have named. It is easily kept clean, durable and safe.

Hot green apple sauce

Utilize in this way early windfalls and unripe summer apples, proverbially dear to the heart of the small boy and harmful to his digestive organs.

Pare and slice thin with a silver knife or with a fruit-knife of Swedish bronze. The crude acid forms an instant and unpleasant combination with steel. As you slice, drop into cold water to keep the color. Cook in an agate-nickel-steel saucepan, with just enough boiling water to keep the apples from burning to the bottom. Fit on a close lid and do not open the pan for half an hour, lest the steam escape. Shake up, and sidewise, every ten minutes to insure uniform steaming. When the half-hour is up open the saucepan, and if the apples are soft rub quickly through a colander of the same ware with the saucepan. Beat in sugar to taste, also a lump of butter—about a tablespoonful to a quart of the stewed fruit; turn into a covered bowl and serve hot. Pass thin graham bread and butter with it.

It is wholesome, anti-bilious and palatable.

Cold apple sauce

Make in the same way of ripe, tart apples, a seasoning with mace or nutmeg to taste. When it has cooled set on ice until wanted.

Stewed apples

Pare and core a dozen tart, juicy apples. Put them into a saucepan with just enough cold water to cover them. Cook slowly until they are tender and clear. Then remove the apples to a bowl, and cover to keep hot; put the juice into a saucepan with a cupful of sugar, and boil for half an hour. Season with mace or nutmeg. Pour hot over the apples and set away covered until cold. Eat with cream.

Baked sweet apples

Wash and core, but do not pare them. Arrange in a deep pudding-dish; put a teaspoonful of sugar and the tiniest imaginable bit of salt into the cavities left by coring; pour in a half cupful of water for a large dishful of apples; cover closely and bake in a good oven forty minutes or until soft.

Eat ice-cold, with cream and sugar.

Stewed prunes

Wash dried prunes and soak them for at least five hours in cold water. Put them into a saucepan with enough water to cover them and simmer very gently for twenty minutes. Now add sufficient granulated sugar to sweeten liberally, and simmer until the prunes are tender. Take from the fire and set aside to cool. Eat with plain cake.

Steamed prunes

Soak as directed above. Place them in a covered roaster and steam steadily for two hours. Make a syrup in a separate vessel with the water left from the soaking. This recipe is especially suited to those who desire but little sugar in prunes, as but little sweetness can be added to the prunes in steaming.

Never boil prunes, as the flavor is thereby injured. When cooked as directed, if the syrup is not heavy enough to suit, remove the prunes from the syrup and boil the syrup down to the required consistency.

Stewed prunelles and sultanas

Prunelles are more than subacid, and need the modifying influence of sweeter fruits. Allow equal parts of prunelles and of the small sultana raisins. Wash the fruit in tepid water, and soak it in enough cold water to cover it for several hours, on the back of the range. Draw them forward where they will simmer gently until soft. Add sugar to taste, let the syrup boil up once, then set away to cool.

Dried apples and peaches

The prejudice against the dried apple of commerce is pronounced, and founded upon traditions we should have outlived. The kiln-dried fruit of to-day is a respectable edible and capable of excellent results. It is especially good if mixed with equal parts of dried peaches, soaked for three hours in just enough tepid water to cover the fruit (having been first washed); then put over the fire with the water in which they were soaked, and simmer tender. Rub through a colander, add sugar, cinnamon and cloves to taste, and let the mixture get perfectly cold.

Stewed cherries

None of our small fruits are more injured by transportation than these same luscious and ruddy lobes. If you must buy cherries which are brought from a distance and are, of necessity, several days old, cook them if you regard the welfare of the digestive organs of your family. The verse that tells us “cherries are ripe” would be more reassuring if it also informed us that they were recently picked.

Wash and pick over carefully; put over the fire in a “safe” saucepan, such as I have already indicated, with just enough water to prevent burning, cover closely and stew until soft, but not broken. Strain off the liquor; set aside the cherries in a covered bowl, add three tablespoonfuls of sugar to each pint of the juice, return to the fire; boil fast for half an hour and pour over the fruit. Keep covered until cold.

Raw cherries

To be eaten at their raw best they should be kept in the ice-box until needed. Then they may be served with their stems still on in a glass bowl with fragments of ice scattered among them.

Sugared cherries

Use large, firm cherries for this dish. Have in front of you a soup-plate containing the whites of three eggs mixed with five tablespoonfuls of cold water, another plate filled with sifted powdered sugar at your right, the bowl of cherries at your left. Dip each cherry in the water and white of egg, turn it over and over in the sugar and lay on a chilled platter to dry. When all are done sift more powdered sugar over the fruit and arrange carefully on a glass dish.

Glacé cherries

Select firm, sweet cherries from which the stems have not been removed. Into a perfectly clean porcelain-lined saucepan put a pound of granulated sugar and a gill of cold water, and boil to a syrup. Do not stir during the process of cooking. Try the syrup occasionally by dropping a little in cold water. When it changes to a brittle candy it is done. Remove the saucepan at once from the fire and set it in a pan of boiling water. Dip each cherry quickly in the hot syrup and lay on a waxed paper to dry. If the syrup shows signs of becoming too thick, add more boiling water to that in the outside pan. When all the cherries have been “dipped” stand them in a warm place to dry.

Pineapple and orange

Cut the top from a pineapple and carefully remove the inside, so that the shell may not be broken. Cut the pulp into bits, mix it with the pulp of three ripe oranges, also cut very small, and liberally sweeten the mixture. Smooth off the bottom of the pineapple shell so that it will stand upright, refill with the fruit pulp, put on the tip and set in the ice for three hours.

Creamed peaches

Lay large, ripe free-stone peaches on the ice for several hours, peel, cut them in half and remove the stones. Whip half a pint of cream light, with two tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Fill the hollows left by the stones to heaping with the whipped cream. Keep in the ice-box until time to serve the fruit.

Grapefruit and strawberries

Cut grapefruit in half and remove the tough fiber and part of the pulp. Chop this pulp and add it to mashed and sweetened strawberries. Refill the grapefruit rinds with the mixture, and set on the ice for an hour or two.

Strawberries and cream

Cap the berries, one at a time, using the tips of your fingers. The practice of holding capped berries in the hollow of the hand until one has as many as the space will accommodate, is unclean and unappetizing. Cap them deftly and quickly, letting each fall into a chilled bowl, and do this just before serving, keeping in a cool place until they are ready to go to table. Pass powdered sugar and cream, also ice-cold, with them.

Raspberries and cream

Follow the directions given in last recipe.

Bartlett pears and cream

Select sweet, ripe pears and lay them in the ice for two hours. Do not peel until just before they are needed. Pare deftly and quickly, slice, sprinkle with sugar, cover with cream and serve.

Bananas and cream

Bananas are very good treated as the pears were in the last recipe. It is a good plan to bury these in the ice until wanted for dessert. Then the hostess may, at the table, quickly peel and slice them into different saucers. Bananas thus prepared do not have time to become discolored from exposure to the air.

SWEET OMELETS

Apple sauce omelet (baked)

Beat the yolks of seven eggs light; stir into them five tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar and a cupful and a half of sweetened apple sauce. Beat long and hard, stir in the stiffened whites, beat for a minute longer and turn into a greased pudding-dish. Bake, covered, for about ten minutes, then uncover and brown. Serve at once with whipped cream. It is also good served with a hot sauce made by the following recipe:

Into a pint of boiling water stir a half-cupful of sugar, and when this dissolves add a teaspoonful of butter, the juice and the grated rind of a lemon and the stiffened white of an egg. Beat for a minute over the fire, but do not let the sauce boil.

Jam omelet

Beat the yolks of five eggs light with a heaping tablespoonful of powdered sugar. Into this stir a teaspoonful of corn-starch dissolved in three tablespoonfuls of milk, then the stiffened whites of the eggs. Cook in a frying-pan until set; spread with strawberry jam, fold and serve as dessert.

Omelet soufflé

Beat the yolks of five eggs very light, adding, gradually, four tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. In another dish whip the whites to a standing froth. With a few long strokes blend the two; pour into a buttered bake-dish and bake quickly. Sift powdered sugar on the top at the end of two minutes, and very quickly, as the omelet will fall if the oven stands open even a few seconds. Serve at once in the bake-dish.

Orange omelet

(Contributed)

Beat the yolks of five eggs together until thick and lemon-colored. Add five tablespoonfuls of orange juice, the grated rind of one orange and five tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Then fold in lightly the beaten whites of four eggs. Put a little butter in an omelet pan, and when hot pour in the omelet mixture and spread in evenly. Let it cook through, but not harden. Fold the edges over and turn out upon a hot dish. Serve with a dressing of sliced oranges and powdered sugar.

Omelet with marmalade

(Contributed)

Beat the yolks of three eggs very light. Then fold in the whites beaten dry. Turn into an omelet pan in which one teaspoonful of butter has been melted. Spread the omelet evenly and cook over a slow fire to set the eggs. Then put in the oven until done. Spread one-half of the omelet with marmalade, fold and serve on hot platter.

Queen Mab omelets

Beat four eggs, the yolks as smooth as cream, the whites to a standing froth. Into the yolks whip three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Mix all together, add a tablespoonful of thick cream, whip lightly and pour into buttered “nappies,” filling each half-way to the top. Set in a pan of boiling water in a quick oven and bake five minutes, covered. Turn out upon a hot platter, sift powdered sugar over them and serve at once.

FAMILIAR TALK

A commonsensible talk with the nominal mistress of the house

There is not that household in the land where servants are employed which is not measurably dependent upon them for peace of mind as well as for comfort of body. Every housewife who reads this will recall the sinking of heart, the damp depression of spirit, which has suddenly overtaken a cheerful mood when the kitchen barometer beckoned “storm” or “change.” Such an overtaking is not an affliction, but it sometimes comes dangerously near to sorrow. The independent maid of all work has it in her power to alter the family plans with a word, when that word is “going.” Should she elect to stay, her lowering brows and sharp or sullen speech abash a mistress who quails at little else. In wealthier households a domestic “strike” involves panic, disorder and suffering.

I know of a wet-nurse whose abandonment of her infant charge, without a word of warning, at ten o’clock one Saturday night, caused a long and terrible illness, resulting in infantile paralysis. A cook who had lived in one family for three years resented the arrival of unexpected guests, packed her trunk and left her mistress to get dinner. The lady was in delicate health and all unused to such work. She became overheated and exhausted, took a heavy cold, which ripened into pneumonia, and died three days after the cook’s desertion.

I need not multiply illustrations of the helplessness of American housewives in the face of such disasters, and the possibility that these may befall any one of us. We have no redress. The women who helped organize the “Protective League” know this. The law does not protect the employer. Public opinion gives her no support. The cook whose fit of temper cost a kind mistress her life was recommended to me within a month after an event that should have shocked the moral sense of every housewife in the community, and recommended by a friend of the murdered woman and of myself. When I exclaimed in surprise, I was told: “We can not be judges of our neighbors’ domestic affairs.”

There is no class spirit among us. For some reasons this is a matter of congratulation to us and the public. All that is needed to make the opening gulf between mistresses and maids impassible is organization on our part, which signifies open war. It is, nevertheless, I note in passing, patent that there should be a code of honor among us with regard to employment of those who have proved absolutely untrustworthy in other households.

We are not true to one another in this matter, and our employées, who are held together by the unwritten laws of a union, none the less strong because nameless and informal, know this as well as we do. The knowledge is one of the most potent weapons in their armory.

Let this pass for the present. I would direct your attention, my sister-worker in the home missionary field, to the brighter side of the vexed question.

After forty years’ careful study of this matter of domestic service—study carried on in other lands as well as in our own—I record thankfully my conviction that the domestics in well-regulated American homes are better cared for, better paid and more thoroughly appreciated than any other class of working women in this country or abroad. I record, likewise and confidently, that the proportion of faithful, valued and even belovéd domestics among us is much larger than that of indifferent or worthless. Most cheerfully and thankfully I add to this record that, personally, I have a list of honest, virtuous, willing workers, whose terms of service in my family varied from three to thirteen years, and who went from my house to homes of their own, bearing with them the cordial esteem of those they had served. Nor is my experience singular, even in these United States. It is so far from being exceptional that I deprecate, almost as an individual grievance, any attempt to organize those who should be our coworkers into a faction that considers us as “the opposition.” It is a putting asunder of those whom a mutual need should join together.

Backed by my two-score years of experiment and action, I dare believe that a leaf or two from my book of household happenings may be of service to younger women and novices in the profession which absorbs the major part of our time and strength.

To begin with—beware of discouragement during the early trial-days of the new maid. Be slow to say, even to yourself: “She will never suit me!” The first days and weeks of a strange “place” are a crucial test for her as for you, and she has not your sense of proportion, your discipline of emotion and your philosophical spirit to help her to endure the discomforts of new machinery.

Looking back upon my housewifely experiences, I am moved to the conclusion that the domestics who stayed with me longest and served me best were those who did not promise great things in their novitiate.

One—“a greenhorn, but six weeks in the country”—frankly owned that she knew nothing of American houses and ways. She was “willing to learn,” and—with a childish tremble of the chin—“didn’t mind how hard she worked if people were kind to her.” I think the quivering chin and the clouding of the “Irish blue” eyes moved me to give her a trial. She did not know a silver fork from a pepper cruet, or a tea-strainer from a colander, and distinguished the sideboard from the buffet by calling the one the “big,” the other the “little dresser.” She had been with me a month when I trusted her to prepare some melons for dessert, giving her careful and minute directions how to halve the nutmeg melons, take out the seeds and fill the cavities with cracked ice, while the watermelon—royal in proportions and the first fruits of our own vines—was to be washed, wiped, and kept in the ice-chest until it was wanted.

At dinner the “nutmegs” appeared whole; the watermelon had been cut across the middle and eviscerated—scraped down to the white lining of the rind—then filled with pounded ice. The succulent sweetness, the rosy lusciousness of the heart, had gone into the garbage can.

Nevertheless, I kept blue-eyed Margaret for eight years. She stands out in my grateful memory as the one and only maid I have ever had who washed dishes “in my way.” Never having learned any other, she mastered and maintained the proper method.

The best nursery-maid I ever knew, and who blessed my household for eleven years, objected diffidently at our first interview to giving a list of her qualifications for the situation. She “would rather a lady would find out for herself by a fair trial whether she would fit the place or not.” I engaged her because the quaint phrase took my fancy. She proved such a perfect fit that she continued to fill the place until she went to a snug home of her own.

What may be called the New Broom of Commerce has no misgivings as to her ability to fill any place, however important. Upon inquiry of the would-be employer as to the latter’s qualifications for that high position, the N. B. of C. may decline to accept her offer of an office which promises more work than “privileges.” But she could fill it—full—if she were willing to “take service” with the applicant.

One of the oddest incongruities of the new-broom problem is that we are always disposed to take it at its own valuation. With each fresh experiment we are confident that—at last!—we have what we have been looking for lo! these many years. She is a shrewd house-mother who reserves judgment until the first awkward week or the crucial first month has brought out the staying power or proved the lack of it.

Officious activity in unusual directions is a bad omen in the New Broom of Commerce. In sporting parlance, I at once “saw the finish” of one whom I found upon the second day of service with me washing a window in the cellar. She “couldn’t abide dirt nowhere,” she informed me, scrubbing vehemently at the dim panes. I had just passed through the kitchen where a grateful of fiery coals was heating the range plates to an angry glow. All the drafts were open; the boiler over the sink was at a bubbling roar; upon the tables was a litter of dirty plates and dishes; pots, pans and kettles filled the sink.

It is well to have a care of the corners, but the weightier matters of the law of cleanliness are usually in full sight.

I once knew a woman who, deliberately, and of purpose, changed servants every month. She said no new broom lasted more than four weeks, and when one became grubby and stumpy she got rid of it. Her house was the cleanest in town and her temper did not seem worse for friction.

Another woman who, strange to tell, lived to be ninety years old, “liked moving” and never lived two years in one and the same house. She maintained that she kept clear of rubbish by frequent flittings, and enjoyed rubbing out and beginning again. Personally, I should have preferred a clean, lively conflagration every three years or so, but she throve upon nomadism.

In minor details of housewifery, as in more important, make up your mind how you will manage the home and turn a deaf ear to gratuitous suggestions from people whose own households would be better conducted if their energies were concentrated.

Let one example suffice: A so-called reformer felt herself called in (or out of) the Gospel of Humanity, the other day, to inveigh in a parlor lecture upon the unkindness and general unchristianliness of the maid’s cap and apron which all would-be stylish mistresses insist upon. “Have I, a Christian woman in a republic,” cried the oratress, “the right to put the badge of servitude upon my sister woman, because, having less money than I have, she is obliged to earn her living? Do I not tend to degrade, instead of elevating her?

“Of a piece with the cap and apron is the black dress, now ‘the thing’ for girls in domestic service. Why should not Bridget and Dinah exercise their own right in dress as well as I?”

These questions have been put to me many times by women who think and act for themselves without regard to arbitrary conventionalities.

I am so well assured that most conventionalities have a substratum of common sense that I am slow to condemn any one of them.

I dispute, at the outset, the insinuation that black dress, white cap and apron are a badge of servitude. I know no more independent class of women than trained nurses, no more arbitrary men than railway officials. I should certainly never consider the distinctive garb of the Sisters of Charity—Protestant or Roman Catholic—as degrading. The idea of humiliation attached to the uniform of housemaid and child’s nurse in the mind of employees or employer is founded upon the conviction that domestic service demeans her who performs it. This is precisely the prejudice which sensible, philanthropic women are trying to beat down—a prejudice that has more to do with the complications of the servant question than all other influences combined. If I hesitate to ask a maid entering my service to wear the uniform of her calling, I intimate too broadly to be misunderstood that there is something in that service which would demean her were it generally known that she is in it.

I had one maid, years ago, who would not run around the corner to grocery or haberdasher’s without taking time to put on her Sunday coat and hat, and to lay off her apron. When I spoke to her of the absurdity and inconvenience of this, she confessed, blushingly, that the porter at the grocery was “keeping company with her,” and “it was nat’ral a gurrel should want to look her best when she was like to see him.”

“Ah,” I said, “doesn’t he know what your position is in my house? Has he never seen you in cap and apron?”

“Shure, mem! Every day when he fetches the groceries.”

“Then, if he is a sensible fellow, he will respect you all the more for not pretending to be what you are not. Since he knows what your business is, show him that you are not ashamed of it. You are as respectable in your place as he is in his—as I am in mine—always providing that you respect your service and yourself.”

Call the distinctive dress of your maid a “uniform,” not a livery. Point out to her the examples of trained nurses, of railway conductors, of the very porters who “keep company” with her; the policemen she admires afar off; the soldiers, whose brass buttons dazzle her imagination. Remind her that saleswomen in fashionable shops wear the black gown, white apron, deep linen collar and cuffs and pride themselves upon looking their best in them. Especially make her comprehend (if you can, for the ways of the untrained mind are past finding out), that she has an honorable calling and need not be ashamed to advertise it.

Congratulate yourself, above all, that a sensible fashion holds back Bridget and Dinah from the “exercise of their own taste in dress.” The modification of that taste wrought by the neat and modest costume prescribed by a majority of modern housewives may be in itself a good thing, sparing the eyes of spectators of her toilettes when she becomes “Mrs.” and independent, and the purse of the porter, or truckman, or mechanic, who will have to pay for them.

I have laid stress upon the advantages of long terms of service, to maid and to mistress. Like all other good things it has its perils and its abuses to be avoided.

Two-thirds of the scandals that poison the social atmosphere steal out, like pestilential fogs, through servants’ gossip. We discuss “the girl” in our bedchambers, and if so much stirred up by her works and ways as to forget what is due to our ladyhood, compare notes in the parlor as to these same works and ways. Being well-bred women, the traditions of our caste prevent us from making domestic grievances the staple of drawing-room conversation and the marrow of table-talk. The electroplated vulgarian never calls attention more emphatically to the absence of the “Sterling” stamp upon her breeding, than when she chatters habitually of the virtues and the faults of her household staff.

On the other hand, the most sophisticated of us would be amazed and confounded if she knew what a conspicuous part She plays in talk below stairs and on afternoons and evenings “out.”

Thackeray, prince of satirists, puts it cleverly:

“Some people ought to have mutes for servants in Vanity Fair—mutes who could not write. If you are guilty—tremble! That fellow behind your chair may be a Janissary with a bowstring in his plush breeches pocket. If you are not guilty, have a care of appearances, which are as ruinous as guilt.”

We should be neither shocked nor confounded that these things are so. If we are mildly surprised, it argues ignorance of human nature, and of the general likeness of one human creature to another, that proves the whole world kin. When mistresses in Parisian toilettes, clinking gold spoons against Dresden as they sip Bohea in boudoir or drawing-room, raise their eyebrows or laugh musically over the latest bit of social carrion in “our set”—Jeames or Abigail, who has caught a whiff at a door ajar, or through a keyhole, is the lesser sinner in serving up the story in the kitchen cabinet. The domestics are in, yet not of, the employer’s world, living for six and a half days of the week among people with whom they have no affinity by nature or education. Where we would talk of “things,” the lower classes discuss what they name “folks.” Their range of thought is pitifully narrow; the happenings in their social life are few and tame. What wonder if they retail what we say and do and are, as sayings, doings and characters appear to them?

What would be extraordinary, if it were not so common, is the opportunity gratuitously afforded in—we will say, guardedly—one family out of three for the collection of material for these sensations of the nether story. I speak by the card in asserting that the influence gained by the confidential maid over her well-born, well-mannered, well-educated mistress is greater than that possessed by any friend in the (alleged) superior’s proper circle of equals.

Without taxing memory I can tell off on my fingers ten gentlewomen, in every other sense of the word, whose intimate confidantes are hirelings who were strangers until they entered the employ of their respective mistresses(?). We need not cross the ocean to listen with incredulous horror to insinuations and open assertions as to the hold a gigantic Scotch gilly acquired over a royal widow. Our next-door neighbors on both sides and our acquaintances across the way are in like bondage.

I have in mind one of the best and most refined women I ever knew whose infatuation for her incomparable Jane was the laughing-stock of some, the surprise and grief of others. Jane disputed the dear soul’s will, oft and again; gave her more advice than she took, and, behind her back, ridiculed her unsparingly—as many of the mistress’s friends were aware. The dupe would resign the affection and society of one and all of her compeers sooner than part with Jane.

Another “just could not live without my Mary.” The remote suggestion throws her into a paroxysm of distress. Her own husband knows it to be necessary to warn her not to tell this and that business or family secret to Mary, knowing, the while, in his sad soul, the chances to be against her keeping her promise not to share it with her factotum.

Ellen is the bosom friend of a third; Bridget is the right hand, the counsellor and colleague of a fourth. A fifth confides to her second-rate associates that her faithful Fanny knows as much of family histories (and there are histories in the clan) as she does, and that she—the miscalled mistress—takes no step of importance without consulting her.

Perhaps one man in five hundred is under the thumb of his employee, and then because the underling has come into possession of some dangerous secret, or has a “business hold” upon him.

Have wives more need of sympathy? or are they less nice in the choice of intimates, and more reckless in confidences?

LUNCHEON CAKES

Huckleberry shortcake

Sift two heaping teaspoonfuls of baking-powder and one of salt into a quart and a pint of flour. Chop into this two tablespoonfuls of cottolene or other fat and two of butter. Beat two eggs light and add them to a pint of sweet milk. Make a hole in the flour, pour in the milk and egg, and mix with a wooden spoon. Turn out upon a pastry board and roll into two sheets, about a third of an inch in thickness. Line a greased biscuit-pan with one sheet, cover it three-quarters of an inch thick with huckleberries, strew these with granulated sugar, fit the upper sheet of dough on the pan and bake in a steady oven until done. Cut into squares and send to table. Split, and eat with butter and sugar.

Currant shortcake

Mash a quart of ripe red currants and stir into them two cups of granulated sugar. Cover and set aside for half an hour.

Make a dough as for quick biscuit, only using a tablespoonful more butter than usual. Roll into a large round biscuit about ten inches in diameter. Bake, and, as soon as done, split open, spread with butter and then with half the sweetened currants. Replace the top of the biscuit and pour the remainder of the currants and juice over and around the shortcake. Serve at once.

Hot strawberry shortcake

Mash a quart of berries, sweeten them with plenty of granulated sugar, and let them stand for an hour and a half.

Into a pint of flour sift a teaspoonful of baking-powder, and half a teaspoonful of salt. Chop into this one tablespoonful of butter until it is thoroughly incorporated. Add enough milk to make a dough that can be easily handled. Turn this upon a floured pastry-board, roll lightly into a huge biscuit as large as a pie-plate. Put into a greased pan and bake in a quick oven. When done, split open quickly, spread with butter, then thickly with the mashed berries, put the two halves together again, pour the remaining mashed berries over the entire cake, and serve very hot.

Cold strawberry shortcake

Cream two tablespoonfuls of butter with a cup of powdered sugar. Beat three eggs light, add to them a quarter of a cup of cream, and stir into the creamed butter and sugar. Beat long and hard before adding a cupful of flour sifted twice with a teaspoonful of baking-powder. Grease three jelly-cake tins, half-fill with the batter and bake in a quick oven. When cold, remove the cakes from the tins, spread each layer with halved strawberries, sprinkle with sugar and pile on a dish. Serve with an abundance of cream.

Scotch shortcake

(Contributed)

Cream a half-pound of fresh butter with a quarter-pound of sugar, and work into it with the hands a pound of flour. Knead long, then turn upon a pastry-board and press into a flat sheet half an inch thick. Cut into squares and bake until light-brown and crisp.

Orange shortcake

(Contributed)

Sift into one and one-half cupfuls of flour one-half cupful of corn-starch, one level teaspoonful of baking-powder and one-half teaspoonful of salt. Rub into this with the tips of the fingers one-third of a cup of butter and moisten with milk enough to make a soft dough. Divide the dough in halves and spread over the bottom of two tins. When done butter the cakes, sift over each powdered sugar, and put between them thin slices of peeled oranges.

German coffee cake (No. 1)

Two cupfuls of scalded milk, one cupful of water, one yeast-cake (one-cent size), one cupful of sugar, one-half cupful of butter, two eggs, a little salt.

Cream sugar and butter, add milk and yeast dissolved in the water, the salt and eggs, well-beaten. Thicken with enough flour to make a batter that can be stirred with a spoon. Beat well and set to rise for about three hours. When light, add enough flour to enable you to roll it out. Roll about an inch thick, and place in long, shallow pans. Set to rise. When light, drop over the top bits of butter about the size of a hickory-nut, and sprinkle generously with sugar and a little cinnamon. Bake about thirty minutes.

German coffee cake (No. 2)

To two cupfuls of soft bread sponge that has been allowed to rise, add one-half cupful of warm milk, a little salt, one-quarter cupful of melted shortening, two eggs, beaten with three-quarters of a cup of sugar. Add one-half grated nutmeg, some raisins or currants, and as much warmed flour as can be worked in with a spoon. Put it into a greased tin and let it rise. When very light, moisten the top with milk, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon, and bake in a slow oven forty minutes. Cover with brown paper until almost done.

Potato cake

Two cupfuls of white sugar, one cupful of butter, four eggs, one-half cupful of milk, one cupful of potatoes, one teaspoonful, each, of cinnamon and cloves, one-half cup of chocolate, two cups of flour, two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder, one cup of almonds. Blanch and chop almonds; grate cold boiled potatoes; beat eggs separately, adding whites last. Bake in a shallow pan in a moderate oven, and cover with caramel frosting.

Huckleberry cake

Sift a scant quart of flour twice with two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Cream together one cupful of butter and two of sugar, add to them five beaten eggs, a cup and a half of milk, a half-teaspoonful, each, of powdered cinnamon and nutmeg and the prepared flour. Last of all, stir in a cupful of huckleberries thoroughly dredged with flour. Bake in greased muffin tins in a steady oven.

This excellent cake is better when twenty-four hours old than when freshly baked.

Apple cake

Cream together a half-cupful of butter and two cupfuls of sugar, and beat into them a half-cupful of milk and five whipped eggs. Last of all, add three cupfuls of flour into which have been sifted two small teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Bake in layers. When cold, make the filling by heating in a double boiler a cupful of apple sauce, adding sugar to taste, and then beating in gradually the yolks of two eggs and the juice of a lemon. Cook, stirring, for a minute, and set aside until cold before spreading on the cake.

Springleys (No. 1)

(A German recipe.)

Beat one pound of granulated sugar for ten minutes with four eggs, leave for an hour, then add one tablespoonful of lemon extract, and one teaspoonful of hartshorn. Work in enough flour (about two pounds) to make it stiff enough to roll out. Powder the forms with flour before using, so as to prevent sticking. Cut apart and lay on a smooth slab until morning. Sprinkle anise seed in the bottom of the tins before putting cakes in. Bake in a quick oven and watch very closely in order to keep them from burning.

Springerlein (No. 2)

(An old German recipe.)

One cup of powdered sugar, rolled fine, sifted and warmed. Four large eggs. Grated rind of one lemon. One pound of flour thoroughly dried and sifted three times. One-half teaspoonful of baking-powder sifted thoroughly with the flour.

With a silver or wooden spoon stir the sugar and eggs steadily for one hour, stirring one way, add rind of lemon, flour and baking-powder, mix quickly into a loaf-shape without much handling. Set aside in a cool place for two hours. Flour your baking-board lightly—take a small piece of dough, which by this time must be stiff enough to cut with a knife, roll out to about a quarter of an inch thick. Put about two tablespoonfuls of flour in a small cheese-cloth bag and with this lightly dust the mold. Press the dough on the mold, lightly but firmly with the finger tips, then turn the mold over and carefully remove. With a cutter cut off surplus dough, put with remainder and proceed as before. Use as little flour as possible in rolling out. Put a cloth on the table, sprinkle it with anise-seed, lay the cakes on this and stand them for twelve hours in a cool room. Bake in a moderate oven in lightly-buttered pans. This recipe will make from sixty-five to seventy-five cakes.

Currant bun

Warm a cupful of cream in a double-boiler, take it from the fire and stir into it a cupful of melted butter, which has not been allowed to cook in melting. Beat three eggs very light, add them to the cream and butter, then stir in a cupful of sugar. Dissolve a half-cake of yeast in a couple of tablespoonfuls of water, sift a good quart of flour, make a hollow in it, stir into it the yeast and then, after adding to the other mixture, a teaspoonful, each, of powdered mace and cinnamon, put in the flour and the yeast. Beat all well for a few minutes, add a cupful of currants that have been washed, dried and dredged with flour, pour into a shallow baking-pan, let it rise for several hours, until it has doubled in size; bake one hour in a rather quick oven; sprinkle with fine sugar when done.

Cinnamon buns

Save a cupful of bread dough from the second rising. Cream a half-cupful of butter with a half-cupful of sugar, stir in a well-beaten egg and work these into the dough. Now add a half-teaspoonful of cinnamon, a teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in a little hot water and a half-cupful of cleaned currants, dredged with flour. Knead for several minutes, form into buns, set to rise for a half-hour, then bake.

Parkin

Mix together three pounds of oatmeal, a pound and a half of molasses, a half-pound of butter creamed with a half-pound of sugar, a dash of ginger and as much baking-soda as will lie upon a shilling, dissolved in a little boiling water. Mix thoroughly and bake in flat pans.

Grandmother’s apple cake

(From an old family recipe.)

Three cups of dried apples stewed slowly in two cups of molasses, then set aside to cool. Three cups of flour; two-thirds of a cup of butter; two cups of brown sugar; one-half cup of raisins; currants and grated lemon peel, mixed; eight teaspoonfuls of water, one level teaspoonful of soda dissolved in the water, three eggs, spices to taste.

This cake will keep for weeks. It is better when a few days old than when first made.

The apples should be carefully washed, first in warm, then in cold water, lying in this last for half an hour. Drain and toss in a towel before adding the molasses.

In the “old times” the quantity of cake made by this recipe lasted the children a month.

Bun loaf

(An English recipe.)

Cream together half a cupful of mixed butter and lard with a half-cupful of brown sugar; beat into this one egg and work both into a cupful of bread dough that has had its second rising. Work in, also, half a teaspoonful of cinnamon and quarter of a grated nutmeg, half a cupful of mixed raisins and currants, the raisins seeded and chopped, the currants washed and dried, and both dredged with flour, a tablespoonful of citron shredded and also dredged, and knead all well for three or four minutes. Make into a loaf, let it rise half an hour and bake in a moderate oven.

Fruit cake (No. 1)

One cupful of butter; one and a half cupfuls of powdered sugar; two cupfuls of flour; six eggs; half a pound, each, of raisins and currants; quarter-pound of citron; teaspoonful of cinnamon and nutmeg; half teaspoonful of ground cloves; three tablespoonfuls of brandy.

Cream butter and sugar, beat in the whipped yolks of the eggs, stir in the flour, the spice, the raisins, seeded and chopped; the currants, washed; the citron, shredded, and all the fruit, well dredged with flour, then the whites, beaten stiff, and the brandy. Bake about two hours in a steady oven.

Fruit cake (No. 2)

Seed and chop a quarter of a pound of raisins; stem and wash a quarter of a pound of currants; and mince three tablespoonfuls of citron. Mix all this fruit together and thoroughly dredge with flour.

Rub to a cream a generous cupful of powdered sugar and a half-cupful of butter, and beat into this five whipped eggs. Now add half a teaspoonful, each, of ground cinnamon, nutmeg and mace, and stir in a cupful of flour. Last of all, add the fruit, turn into a greased cake tin and bake steadily, not fast, until done. This will probably take from an hour to an hour and a half.

Fruit cake (No. 3)

Cream one cupful of butter with two cupfuls of powdered sugar, beat the yolks of six eggs and add to the butter and sugar. Put in two and a half cupfuls of sifted flour, half a pound, each, of seeded and chopped raisins, and of washed and dried currants, a quarter of a pound of shredded citron, all well dredged with flour, and a teaspoonful, each, of cinnamon and grated nutmeg. Last of all, put in the whites of the eggs beaten stiff. Bake in a steady oven.

Christmas fruit cake

This cake may be made as long before Christmas as you desire, as it will keep for months. Cream together a half-pound, each, of butter and sugar, and stir in six beaten eggs. Now beat in one teaspoonful, each, of powdered nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon, one cupful of flour, a half pound, each, of cleaned currants, seeded and chopped raisins, and a quarter of a pound of shredded citron—all thoroughly dredged with flour. Last of all, add a tablespoonful of rose water. Turn into a deep tin, well greased, and bake in a steady oven until done.

Pound cake

One pound, each, of butter, of sugar, of eggs, of flour; one tablespoonful of brandy, one-half teaspoonful of mace.

Cream butter and sugar, beat whites and yolks separately and very light. Add the brandy and mace to the creamed butter and sugar, stir in the yolks, and, after beating hard for a couple of minutes, add the flour and whites alternately, whipping them in lightly, but not stirring after they have gone in. A pound cake batter should be as stiff as it can be stirred. Bake in brick tins, or in small pans in a steady oven, covering with paper to prevent too quick browning.

Grafton cake

Cream together three tablespoonfuls of butter with two cupfuls of sugar and beat into these the yolks of three eggs, whipped light. Add a cupful of cold water and two cupfuls of sifted flour. Stir in, then, the whites of the eggs, beaten stiff, and another cupful of flour into which has been sifted a heaping teaspoonful of baking-powder. Flavor with a half-teaspoonful of nutmeg and cinnamon, mixed.

Gold cake

Cream together a cupful of butter and two cupfuls of sugar. When well blended, stir in the beaten yolks of four eggs and a scant cupful of milk. Now add, gradually, enough prepared flour to make a good batter, and, at the last, the juice and grated rind of one orange. Turn into a greased tin and bake until a straw comes out clean from the thickest part of the loaf. Frost with an icing made by beating a cupful of powdered sugar into the unbeaten white of one egg. When light and smooth, add a teaspoonful of orange juice and a tablespoonful of grated orange peel.

Silver cake

Cream together a cupful of sugar and a half-cupful of butter, and beat into them the whites of four eggs, then a half-cupful of cold water. Sift a pint of flour with a heaping teaspoonful of baking-powder and add this gradually, beating to a light batter. Stir in, at the last, a teaspoonful of rose-water and bake in a loaf. Cover with icing flavored with rose-water.

Chocolate loaf cake (No. 1)

Cream together a cupful of sugar and a half-cupful of butter; add a cupful of milk, four beaten eggs, and three ounces of grated chocolate dissolved in a little milk. Beat all hard, then stir in quickly two cupfuls of sifted prepared flour; flavor with vanilla and turn all into a greased cake tin. Bake in a steady oven until a straw comes out clean from the thickest part of the loaf.

Chocolate loaf cake (No. 2)

Dissolve eight tablespoonfuls of sweet grated chocolate in a gill of hot milk. Rub to a cream a half-cupful of butter and a large cupful of sugar, and into this beat five whipped eggs, the dissolved chocolate, a pint of prepared flour and a teaspoonful of vanilla. Turn into a loaf-tin and bake. Cover with chocolate icing.

Cocoanut and citron layer cake

Rub together three-quarters of a cupful of butter and a cupful and a half of powdered sugar. When this mixture is like a soft cream, add six eggs, beaten light, a cupful of water, and three cupfuls of flour sifted twice with a heaping teaspoonful of baking-powder. If the batter should be too thin, add cautiously a little more flour. Pour into three greased layer-cake tins, and bake to a delicate brown.

Whip a pint of cream stiff with a generous half-cupful of powdered sugar. Have ready a fresh cocoanut, grated. Beat this into the whipped cream. When the cake is cold, spread each layer of it with this mixture, and sprinkle with minced citron. On the top layer heap the cocoanut cream, and dot it here and there with bits of the green citron. This cake must be eaten within a few hours after it is made.

Old-fashioned sponge cake

Weigh ten eggs; allow their weight in sugar, and half their weight in flour. Beat the yolks light, whip the sugar into them, stir in half the grated peel and all the juice of a lemon, then the flour, and lastly the whites folded in. Bake in a steady oven.

A good cup sponge cake

Beat the yolks and whites of five eggs separate. Into the yolks stir a cupful of sugar and a small teacupful of flour that has been well sifted with a small teaspoonful of baking-powder. Beat long and hard—if you do it for twenty minutes it will not be too long. Add a teaspoonful, each, of lemon and orange juice and fold in lightly the stiff whites. Bake at once in a loaf tin in a steady oven. It should be done in three-quarters of an hour.

Boiled sponge cake (No. 1)

Eight eggs. The weight of the eggs in sugar, and half their weight in flour. Separate the yolks and whites of the eggs carefully. Beat the yolks very light, add the sugar to them, the juice and grated rind of one lemon, and half the flour. Whip the whites to a stiff froth, add half of these to the batter, stir in the rest of the flour and the remaining whites. Pour into a greased cake-mold, with a tight-fitting top, and put this on the stove in a pot of boiling water. Do not let the water come up over the top of the tin. Boil steadily for at least an hour before looking at the cake. Test then with a straw, and if not done, boil a while longer. The straw should come out clean when the cake is done.

Boiled sponge cake (No. 2)

Beat six eggs light, yolks and whites separately. Bring to a boil three-quarters of a pound of sugar and a half-cupful of water. Boil for five minutes and pour gradually, beating steadily, upon the yolks of the eggs. Now whip in the juice of a lemon, a half-pound of prepared flour, and the whites of the eggs, added quickly and lightly. Bake in brick-shaped tins in a steady oven, covering the cake with paper for the first twenty minutes of the baking. The loaf should be done in half an hour.

Raisin bread

Scald a pint of milk and beat into it a teaspoonful of melted butter and one of salt. When the mixture is lukewarm add half a yeast-cake, dissolved in a half-cupful of warm water, and beat in enough flour to make a good batter. Set in a warm room to rise for eight hours. Beat hard, add a cupful of flour and work in a cupful of halved and seeded raisins, plentifully dredged with flour. Set to rise until light, then bake.

Water crackers or wafers

(A Southern recipe.)

Into a half-pound of flour rub a tablespoonful of butter, a little salt, and add enough cold water to make a dough that can be rolled out. Roll very thin, cut out, and roll again. Bake in a floured tin to a pale brown.

Pork cake

(A Yorkshire recipe.)

One pound of fat salt pork free from lean or rind; chop so fine as to be almost like lard, pour upon it one-half pint of boiling water, add two cupfuls of dark brown sugar, one of New Orleans molasses, one teaspoonful of soda stirred into the molasses, one pound of raisins, one pound of dates, chopped; one-fourth of a pound of citron shaved fine. Stir in enough sifted flour to make it the consistency of common cake batter; season with one teaspoonful, each, of cinnamon, cloves, allspice and nutmeg. Bake in a moderate oven.

Kleiner

(A Danish recipe.)

The yolks of six eggs, the yolks and whites of two eggs, one-quarter of a pound of sugar. Whip these together, add two tablespoonfuls of cream, one ounce of melted butter, and work in as much flour as possible, but not more than a pound. Knead this with flour until the dough stops sticking to the fingers. Roll out very thin with a little more flour, and cut in oblong pieces about three inches long, and not quite half as wide. Cut a slit in the middle of each, and bend one end through, so as to make a twist in the middle. Boil in deep cottolene or other fat until light brown. Put up in tin boxes. They will keep for a long time.

Poverty cake

Mix together half a cupful of molasses, half a cupful of sugar, one egg and two tablespoonfuls of melted butter. When these are beaten together thoroughly add one teaspoonful of soda dissolved in half a cupful of cold water, cinnamon or ginger to taste, and one and a half cupfuls of flour. Bake in a shallow pan in a moderate oven for about thirty minutes.

Good, in spite of the name!

Jelly roll

Take four eggs and their weight in butter, sugar and flour. Cream the butter and sugar, add the beaten yolks, and whip for five minutes. Put in the flour, the stiffened whites, and, last of all, a full teaspoonful of baking-powder. Pour into a greased baking-tin, and make the layer not more than half an inch thick. Bake quickly and steadily, turn from the pan while hot, spread with jelly at once and roll. Cover with paper and tie into shape until cold.

Angel cake

Sift a teaspoonful of cream of tartar six times with a half-cupful of flour. Whip the whites of six eggs until they stand alone, then gradually stir into them a half-cupful of granulated sugar and the sifted flour. Beat very hard, turn into a clean, ungreased pan with a funnel in the middle. Bake in a steady oven until a straw comes out clean from the thickest part. Turn the pan upside down upon a clean towel, and as the cake cools, it will slip out of the tin. When cold, ice the bottom and sides of the loaf.

Devil’s food

Half a cupful of chocolate, grated; half a cupful of sweet milk; half a cupful of brown sugar. Boil these together until as thick as cream, and let cool.

One cupful of brown sugar; half a cupful of butter; two eggs; two-thirds of a cupful of milk; vanilla flavoring. Mix well, beat in the boiled mixture and two cupfuls of flour sifted with a heaping teaspoonful of baking-powder. Bake in layers, put together with chocolate filling and cover with a white icing.

Sunshine cake

Sift one cupful of granulated sugar and add it to the yolks of five eggs, first beating these until they are thick. Add a dash of salt. Sift three-quarters of a cupful of flour twice with half a teaspoonful of cream of tartar, and add to the eggs and sugar. Beat for twenty minutes, and fold in the whites of seven eggs whipped stiff with a teaspoonful of white sugar dissolved in one teaspoonful of lemon juice and one tablespoonful of orange juice. Butter a pan, flour it lightly, and bake the cake in a steady oven for forty minutes.

Orange layer cake

Cream three tablespoonfuls of butter with two cupfuls of sugar, add the beaten yolks of five eggs, the juice and half the grated rind of an orange, and three cupfuls of flour—or enough for a batter—sifted with two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Last of all, fold in the stiffened whites of three eggs. Bake in layer tins.

Filling for orange cake

Beat the whites of two eggs very stiff with one cupful of powdered sugar; add the juice and half the grated peel of an orange. Whip to a soft cream, and spread between the layers when they are cold.

Almond cake

Blanch enough almonds to make a cupful of them when skinned, and when cold pound to a paste. Or, what is more convenient, buy the almond paste ready prepared. Cream a quarter-pound of butter with a pound of powdered sugar, and beat into this the well-whipped yolks of seven eggs. Now beat in gradually the almond paste, a teaspoonful of rose-water, a quart of sifted flour, and, lastly, the stiffened whites of the eggs. Bake in a loaf in a steady oven until a straw comes out clean from the thickest part. When cold, ice, flavoring the icing with rose-water and a very little essence of bitter almonds.

Chrysanthemum cake

Half a pint of butter and one pint of sugar rubbed to a cream; the beaten whites of eight eggs, and one and a half pints of flour in which have been sifted one and a half teaspoonfuls of baking-powder, one-half pint of milk and the grated rind of an orange. Color the batter a delicate pink with cochineal, and bake in jelly-cake tins in a moderate oven. Use red sugar for icing.

Daisy cake

Beat the yolks of four eggs very light with a cupful of sugar. Cream a quarter of a pound of butter and stir into the beaten egg and sugar, then add a gill of water into which three teaspoonfuls of cream have been stirred, and flavor with vanilla extract. Now fold in one and a half cupfuls of flour that have been sifted with two even teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. If this quantity makes the batter too stiff, add less, as some flours thicken more than others. Bake in layers. These form the yellow part of the cake. For the white part cream a half cupful of butter with one and a half cupfuls of sugar, add a cupful of lukewarm water and two and a half cupfuls of flour that have been sifted with two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Beat hard. Add the juice and rind of one lemon, and fold in the stiffened whites of the four eggs. Bake in layers. When cold, put the layers together, alternating yellow and white, using a boiled icing filling. Use the same icing for the top, coloring it with grated orange peel. When this frosting is firm, make a plain white boiled icing and, with a pastry tube, make of it the form of a daisy on top of the other icing.

Lemon cake

One cupful of butter; two and a half cupfuls of sugar; three eggs, yolks and whites beaten separately; four cupfuls of flour; one scant teaspoonful of baking-soda dissolved in a little milk; one cupful of sweet milk; the juice and grated rind of two lemons. Beat butter and sugar to a cream, add the yolks, well beaten, then the milk and soda. Then add two cupfuls of the flour, the juice and grated rind of the lemons. Mix again, and, last of all, add the whites of the eggs beaten to a stiff froth. Bake in a hot oven.

White mountain cake

Into three cupfuls of sugar rub one cupful of butter and stir in a half-cupful of sweet milk. Add four cupfuls of prepared flour alternately with the stiffened whites of ten eggs. If you find that the batter is going to be too stiff, do not put in the whole quantity of flour. Bake in layer tins.

Filling for white mountain cake

Boil together a half-pound of sugar and a half-cupful of water until the syrup is thick enough to hang in a thick thread from a fork dipped into it. Stir in, a teaspoonful at a time, the stiffened whites of two eggs, beating them hard into the boiling syrup. Remove from the fire and beat until like thick cream, and cool; then add a teaspoonful of lemon juice. Spread on each layer of the cake, put the layers in a pile on top of one another and pour the remaining icing over the top layer, spreading it smoothly with a knife dipped in boiling water. Sprinkle the whole cake with powdered sugar while the frosting is still moist.

Mocha cake

Cream a half cupful of butter with one and a half cupfuls of sugar. Add three-quarters of a cupful of milk, and the stiffened whites of three eggs alternately with enough prepared flour to make a good batter. Bake in layers.

Filling for Mocha cake

Thicken a cupful of scalding milk with a tablespoonful of cornstarch wet with a little cold milk. Stir over the fire until smooth, then pour gradually on the yolks of three eggs that have been beaten light with a half cupful of sugar. Stir over the fire for three minutes, and set aside until almost cold, when beat in a gill of strong black coffee. Spread upon the cake layers.

Thanksgiving citron cake

Cream a cupful of butter with three cupfuls of powdered sugar, add a cupful of milk, and four cupfuls of prepared flour alternately with the stiffened whites of ten eggs. If too stiff lessen the quantity of flour. Flavor with rose-water, and stir in two cups of shredded citron, plentifully dredged with flour. Bake in an oven, not too hot, for two hours.

Minnehaha cake

Cream a half-cupful of butter with one and a half cupfuls of sugar, add the beaten yolks of four eggs; a half-pint of milk, and the stiffened whites of the eggs alternately with three even cupfuls of prepared flour, or enough to make a good batter. Bake in layer tins.

Filling for Minnehaha cake

Boil a cupful of sugar with four tablespoonfuls of water until a drop “threads” when pressed between the thumb and finger; then beat in the whipped white of an egg, and a half-cupful, each, of seeded and chopped raisins and walnut meats. Spread this mixture on the layers of cake.

Marshmallow layer cake

Cream a cupful of butter with two cupfuls of sugar, and when smooth and light, add the well-beaten yolks of six eggs, a cupful of milk and two cupfuls of prepared flour, alternately with the stiffened whites of the six eggs. If the batter is too thin, add a little more flour. Flavor with vanilla and bake in layer tins.

Filling for marshmallow cake

Dissolve five tablespoonfuls of gum arabic in a gill of cold water; then stir in a half-cupful of powdered sugar and boil all together until a little dropped in cold water can be rolled into a soft ball between the finger and thumb. Have ready-beaten the white of an egg and strain the syrup into this, beating the stiffened egg constantly as you do so. Flavor with vanilla and spread upon the cake layers with a knife dipped in boiling water.

Plain loaf cake

One cupful of butter rubbed to a cream with two cupfuls of sugar; three cupfuls of flour sifted three times with a heaping teaspoonful of baking-powder; four eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately, and very light; one cupful of milk. Bake in two loaves.

This simple formula is the foundation for scores of fancy cakes, especially of those baked in layers.

Nut cake

Cream one cupful of butter with two cupfuls of sugar; add a cupful of cold water, the well-beaten yolks of four eggs, a half teaspoonful of ground mace and cinnamon, mixed, and three cupfuls of prepared flour, stirred in alternately with the stiffened whites of the eggs. Do not get the batter too stiff. Now add two cupfuls of hickory-nut kernels, thoroughly dredged with flour. Stir in quickly and turn at once into a well-greased loaf-tin. Bake in a steady oven, covering the cake with brown paper for the first half-hour it is in the oven. When a straw comes out clean from the thickest part it is done. When cold, turn out, and cover with a plain white-of-egg icing. Arrange half-kernels of hickory-nuts at regular intervals on the top of the icing.

Sour cream cake

(Contributed)

Beat the yolks of three eggs until stiff, add one cupful of sugar and one cupful of rich sour cream, in which has been dissolved one scant teaspoonful of soda. Add two cupfuls of sifted flour, one-half teaspoonful of salt, and one teaspoonful of lemon extract. Bake in a shallow pan.

Bride’s cake

Cream together three cupfuls of sugar and one scant cupful of butter, adding the sugar a little at a time. Add one cupful of milk. Sift thoroughly three cupfuls of flour, three teaspoonfuls of baking-powder and one cupful of corn-starch. Beat very light the whites of twelve eggs. To the egg and sugar mixture add the sifted flour, and, last, of all, the beaten whites of the twelve eggs. Flavor to taste. Stir all together thoroughly. Pour into well-buttered and floured tins. Bake slowly in a moderate oven.

Cream cake

(Contributed)

Beat separately the whites and yolks of four eggs, to the yolks add two cupfuls of sugar stirred in a little at a time, and one cupful of sweet cream. Sift thoroughly two heaping cupfuls of flour, one teaspoonful of soda and two teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar. Add this to the egg mixture. Stir in the whites last, stirring gently.

Marble cake

(Contributed)

White Part: With two and one-half cupfuls of flour sift two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Cream one-half cupful of butter and one cupful of white sugar. Add one-half cupful of sweet milk and the sifted flour. Then the whites of four eggs beaten stiff and a teaspoonful of vanilla.

Dark Part: Stir until perfectly smooth and creamy one-half cupful of butter and one cupful of brown sugar. Add to this the well-beaten yolks of four eggs, one-half cupful of cooking molasses, one-half cupful of sour milk. Sift with one and a half cupfuls of flour, one teaspoonful, each, of cloves, cinnamon, mace and grated nutmeg. Stir in part of the flour mixture. Then add one teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a little milk, and the rest of the flour. Butter well the cake pan and drop in a spoonful of each kind, trying to drop the mixture so as to give the appearance of marble.

One egg cake

(Contributed)

Cream one-half cup of butter, two cupfuls of sugar; add one egg beaten light, one cupful of milk, one teaspoonful of vanilla, and two cupfuls of flour into which have been sifted two level teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Bake in a moderate oven.

Caramel cake

(Contributed)

Sift together three cupfuls of pastry flour and three teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Cream one-half cupful of butter and two cupfuls of sugar. Beat the yolks of four eggs until thick and lemon-colored. Add one cupful of milk and alternately the well-beaten whites of the eggs and the flour. Then add one teaspoonful of vanilla extract and one teacupful of chopped walnuts. Bake in loaf and when done cover with the caramel frosting.

Currant cake

(Contributed)

Sift together three cupfuls of pastry flour and three level teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Cream one scant cupful of butter with one and one-half cupfuls of sugar, adding the sugar gradually; and the well-beaten yolks of three eggs and one teaspoonful of vanilla. Add to this one-half cupful of milk alternately with the flour and last of all one cupful of cleaned and floured currants. Bake in a moderate oven about fifty minutes.

FROSTINGS FOR CAKES

Boiled frosting for cake

Put into a saucepan half a cupful of water and a pound of granulated sugar and let it boil slowly. Do not stir. When it spins a thread from the tip of a spoon dipped into it, take it from the fire. Set it aside until it is blood-warm, and then stir steadily until you have a smooth white cream. Apply it to the cake as you would any other icing. If made properly it will harden by the time it is fairly on the cake. If it hardens too much before it is used set it in warm water until it softens. Flavor it while stirring.

Frosting for plain loaf cake

One cupful of cream; one pound of confectioner’s sugar XXX; one cupful of seeded raisins, chopped; one cupful of almonds, chopped; one teaspoonful of lemon juice. Mix quite stiff.

Chocolate frosting for layer cake

Put into a porcelain-lined saucepan a cupful of granulated sugar and a third of a cupful of hot water and boil without stirring until it threads, then pour slowly upon the beaten white of an egg to which has been added a pinch of cream of tartar. Beat steadily, adding, as you do so, two heaping tablespoonfuls of grated chocolate, two tablespoonfuls of cream, a half-teaspoonful of butter, and a teaspoonful of vanilla. When the mixture is blood-warm, cover the cake with it.

Milk frosting

(Contributed)

To ten tablespoonfuls of sweet milk, add one and one-half cupfuls of sugar, and boil six minutes. Take from the fire and stir until white. Flavor and spread quickly.

Frosting made with yolks

(Contributed)

Proceed exactly the same as for ordinary frosting, using the yolks of the eggs instead of the whites.

VARIOUS FILLINGS FOR CAKE

Marshmallow filling

Dissolve five teaspoonfuls of powdered gum arabic in half a cup of cold water, add half a cupful of powdered sugar and boil until thick enough to form a soft ball between the fingers when dropped into ice water. Pour upon the white of an egg beaten stiff, flavor with a teaspoonful of vanilla and a few drops of lemon juice and spread on the cake with a knife dipped in hot water.

Soft white filling for layer cake

Make a syrup of a cupful of granulated sugar and a third of a cupful of water and simmer over the fire until it threads. Beat the whites of two eggs stiff, add a generous pinch of cream of tartar, and beat steadily while you pour in the hot syrup. Do not cease beating until it is like a thick white paste; then flavor with vanilla or lemon and spread at once on the layer cakes.

Caramel filling (No. 1)

Put together over the fire three-quarters of a cupful of cream, half a cupful of sugar and a tablespoonful of butter. Cook until it spins a thread, add to it four tablespoonfuls of burnt sugar, or caramel, and a teaspoonful of vanilla. When it is cool, use for the filling and frosting of cake.

Caramel filling (No. 2)

Make the caramel of burnt sugar by putting a cupful of sugar over the fire with a quarter-cup of water and let them boil until the syrup begins to change color. Tip the saucepan from one side to the other so that it may brown equally. When it is nearly black, but before it has begun to char, add to it a cupful of boiling water, pouring it in carefully lest in its sputtering you should be scorched. It must boil after this until all is dissolved and it is like very dark syrup. In making your cake filling put over the fire one tablespoonful of butter, three-quarters of a cupful of cream and half a cupful of white sugar. Boil all together until they spin a thread from the end of a fork tine, add four tablespoonfuls of the caramel and a teaspoonful of vanilla and set aside to cool. Use for filling and frosting cakes.

Raisin filling

One cupful of granulated sugar and one-fourth cupful of water. Boil together without stirring until it is brittle when dropped into cold water. Stir quickly into the beaten white of one egg. Add to this one small cup of stoned raisins chopped very fine.

Cocoanut filling

(Contributed)

Chill one cupful of thick sweet cream and add one-half cupful of powdered sugar. Whip until light and dry and fold in the well-beaten white of one egg and one cupful of grated cocoanut. Spread between the layers and over the top of the cake.

Custard filling

(Contributed)

Put two cupfuls of milk into a double boiler and bring to the boiling point. Moisten two tablespoonfuls of corn-starch in a little cold milk. Beat the yolks of four eggs very light and add one-half cupful of sugar; then the corn-starch. Stir this mixture with the boiling milk and let it cook long enough for the corn-starch to be thoroughly cooked. Flavor when almost cold.

Fig filling

(Contributed)

Put one cupful of water into a saucepan over the fire and add one-half cupful of sugar. Add one pint of figs, finely chopped, to the syrup and cook together until soft and smooth. When cold spread between the layers of the cake.

Almond filling

(Contributed)

Beat three cupfuls of powdered sugar into the whites of three eggs. Blanch one pound of sweet almonds. Pound in a mortar until they make an even paste, with a little sugar. Then add to the whites of the eggs, and flavor with a little vanilla. Stir thoroughly.

GINGERBREADS

Molasses gingerbread (No. 1)

Warm together two cupfuls of molasses, a half cupful each of cottolene or other fat and butter, and two tablespoonfuls of ground ginger, and when a little more than blood-warm, beat hard for ten minutes; then add two teaspoonfuls of soda dissolved in a little hot water, a cupful of sour milk and enough flour to make a soft dough that can be rolled out. Turn on a floured board, roll out, cut into shapes and bake in a good oven. While hot brush over with the white of an egg.

Molasses gingerbread (No. 2)

One cupful of New Orleans molasses; one cupful of sugar; one cupful of sour cream; one small cupful of butter; three eggs; three cupfuls of flour; one teaspoonful each of cloves, cinnamon, ginger and baking-soda, the last dissolved in a little hot water. Bake in two loaves in a moderate oven.

Hard gingerbread

In a double boiler heat a cupful of New Orleans molasses, and add half a cupful of melted butter to it. Pour into a bowl and when blood-warm add a tablespoonful of ginger, a half teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a little boiling water, and stir in enough flour to make a stiff dough. Turn upon a floured board, roll thin, cut out and bake in a hot oven.

Soft gingerbread

Sift one teaspoonful of baking powder and a half teaspoonful of salt twice with two cupfuls of flour. Stir to a cream half a cupful of butter, the same of sugar and the same of molasses. Warm the mixture slightly and beat light before adding a well-whipped egg, a half teaspoonful of ground mace and a tablespoonful of ginger. Dissolve half a teaspoonful of baking soda in a tablespoonful of hot water; stir this into half a cupful of sweet milk; lastly, stir in the flour; beat hard for one minute, and bake in two shallow pans, well buttered, or in pâté pans.

Raisin gingerbread

Mix as above, adding at the last half a cupful of seeded raisins cut into halves and well dredged with flour.

Aunt Nelly’s gingerbread

Sift half a teaspoonful of salt and an even teaspoonful of baking-soda in one and a half cupfuls of flour. Rub to a cream half a cupful of butter, with an equal quantity of brown sugar and of molasses. Beat smooth and light, adding, gradually, half a cupful of milk. Now stir in a cupful of prepared flour, after which add more flour until you can knead it as you would bread dough. Work it hard for one minute, roll into an even sheet, and cut to fit your baking pans, which must be well greased. Cut into squares with a jagging iron as the sheet lies in the pan, and bake in a good oven covered for twelve minutes. Then uncover and brown.

Gingerbread, “such as mother used to make”

Mix together a half-cupful each of brown sugar and New Orleans molasses, and stir in a tablespoonful of melted butter, a teaspoonful of ground ginger and a teaspoonful of cinnamon. Set the bowl containing these ingredients at the side of the range until the contents are blood-warm; then remove from the range and beat with an egg-beater until the batter is light brown in color. Now stir in a cupful of sour milk and three cupfuls of sifted flour. Beat very hard, adding, last of all, a teaspoonful of baking-soda dissolved in hot water. Beat for two minutes longer and bake in deep muffin-tins, or in a shallow baking-pan.

Sour milk gingerbread

Mix together a half cupful of sugar, a half cupful of molasses, a tablespoonful of butter, a half teaspoonful of ground cinnamon and a teaspoonful of ground ginger. Set the bowl containing this mixture at the side of the range until the contents are warm, then beat until light in color and foamy in appearance. Now beat in a teacupful of sour milk, a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a tablespoonful of boiling water, and two and a half cupfuls of flour. Turn into a greased shallow pan, and bake in a steady oven. Eat hot.

Currant gingerbread

Make as directed in last recipe, adding at the last half a cupful of currants that have been carefully washed and picked over, then soaked for half an hour in warm water, dried between two towels and dredged with flour.

Honey gingerbread

Warm a generous half-cupful of butter and beat into it two scant cupfuls of strained honey. When you have a light cream, beat in one tablespoonful of powdered sugar, a tablespoonful of ginger and half a teaspoonful of cinnamon. Now add the beaten yolks of four eggs, and, alternately with the frothed whites, three even cupfuls of flour sifted twice with a teaspoonful of baking-powder.

Beat hard for one minute and bake in buttered shallow pans in a moderate oven forty-five minutes. Keep covered for thirty minutes.

SMALL CAKES

What the old-fashioned people call “dough cakes”—what we term “cookies” or “jumbles”—are amongst the most popular small cakes that the housemother can present to her brood. The only trouble is that they are sometimes too popular, as they melt away before John’s and the boys’ onslaughts like snow under spring sunshine. Still the mother makes them gladly. It is always a great convenience to have a stone crock full of cookies in the house. They are nice for luncheon, for afternoon tea, and to eat with a glass of milk before going to bed. They must be kept in a dry atmosphere, as they are doubly delicious when crisp and friable.

Almond macaroons

Beat the whites of three eggs stiff and whip into them half a cupful of powdered sugar, a quarter-pound of almond paste, crumbled fine, half a teaspoonful of corn-starch, and five drops of essence of bitter almonds. Drop by the spoonful on buttered paper and bake in a hot oven. If you can not get almond paste, pound blanched almonds fine.

Cocoanut macaroons

Into two cups of grated cocoanut stir a cupful and a half of powdered sugar and a gill of cream, or just enough to wet the cocoanut. Add the beaten whites of two eggs, and mix all thoroughly. Line a baking pan with buttered paper, drop the cocoanut mixture by the teaspoonful upon this and bake quickly in a hot oven. Sift powdered sugar over the macaroons while they are still warm.

Auntie’s cookies

One cupful of butter; two cupfuls of sugar; three eggs; one-half teaspoonful of baking-powder; one even teaspoonful of nutmeg and half as much cloves; flour for a soft dough. Begin with two cupfuls, adding cautiously until you have the right consistency.

Rub butter and sugar to a soft cream; add the yolks of the eggs, beaten light, then the spice, one cupful of flour with which the baking-powder has been sifted twice, and half the whites beaten stiff. Next another cupful of flour and the rest of the whites. Roll into a sheet of dough about a quarter-inch thick, cut into rounds and bake in a good oven. If you like, you may stick a seeded raisin or a bit of citron in the top of each cooky before baking.

Currant cookies

One cupful of sugar; two scant cupfuls of flour; four tablespoonfuls of butter; two eggs; one scant teaspoonful of baking-powder; one cupful of cleaned currants, chopped fine; nutmeg and cinnamon to taste.

Rub butter and sugar to a cream; add spices and the eggs beaten light, then the flour with which the baking-powder has been sifted twice; lastly, the chopped currants. Roll out with quick, light strokes, cut into shapes and bake in a tolerably brisk oven. They are better the second day after baking than on the first.

Oatmeal cookies

Mix together four cupfuls of flour (into which you have sifted a teaspoonful of soda) and three cupfuls of oatmeal; add two cupfuls of powdered sugar, a cupful of melted butter, and a teaspoonful of salt. Moisten the mass with enough cold water to make a very stiff dough. Roll as thin as possible, cut into round cakes and bake. This will make a very large number of cookies, but they will keep well for weeks.

German almond cookies

The yolks of six eggs; one and a half cupfuls of sugar; three-quarters of a cupful of butter; one cupful of almonds, chopped; one tablespoonful of cinnamon; three cupfuls of flour. Beat well, drop small spoonfuls on a well-greased pan and bake lightly.

Sponge cookies

Beat the yolks of two eggs light with one cupful of sugar. When smooth, add the whites beaten to a standing froth, the juice of half a lemon, and, with quick, light strokes, a cupful of flour sifted twice with one teaspoonful of baking-powder and a little salt. Now, work in more flour until you have a “rollable” dough. Cut into shapes, and bake quickly in a floured shallow pan.

Lemon cookies

Cream two cupfuls of granulated sugar and one cupful of butter. Add three beaten eggs and flavor with lemon juice. Sift into the mixture enough flour to make the dough stiff enough to handle, roll thin, cut out and bake.

Spice cookies

Cream one cupful of butter with two of sugar, and add three eggs. Mix together a teaspoonful each of allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg, and stir these into the batter. Add enough flour to make a good dough, roll out and bake.

Caraway cookies

Rub one-half cupful of butter to a cream with one cupful of powdered sugar, and when light beat in the yolks of three eggs. Beat the whites stiff and add them alternately with two cupfuls of flour. Stir in one teaspoonful of caraway seed and enough more flour to enable you to roll it very thin. Cut into rounds and bake quickly.

Fanny’s cookies

Into two cupfuls of granulated sugar rub one cupful of butter, then stir in three eggs, well beaten, and flour enough to make a stiff dough. Roll out on a floured board, cut, sprinkle with granulated sugar, stick a raisin in the center of each and bake.

Sand cookies

Cream a cupful of butter with two cupfuls of granulated sugar, add two eggs beaten light, yolks and whites separately, then half a teaspoonful of ground mace or of nutmeg. Have ready three cupfuls of flour sifted twice with one teaspoonful of baking-powder, and work into the mixture until you can roll out the dough.

Cut round with a tin cutter; wash the tops lightly with white of egg; press half of a split blanched almond into the center of each, and sprinkle well with coarse granulated sugar.

This is the “sand.”

Bake quickly.

Peanut cookies

One cupful of butter; one and one-half cupfuls of powdered sugar; three eggs; one cupful of freshly roasted peanuts, pounded, rolled to a coarse powder, and mixed with about three cupfuls of flour.

Cream the butter and sugar, add the beaten eggs, then the flour and crushed peanuts. The dough should be just stiff enough to handle easily. Drop the dough by the spoonful upon a floured board, pat it into round cakes with the fingers, grate a little nutmeg over the top of each cake and bake. A novelty, and one that is likely to be popular.

Alma’s drop cakes

Beat five eggs light—yolks and whites separately. Into the yolks stir a cupful of powdered sugar, the juice of a lemon and half the grated peel—then the stiffened whites of the eggs. Sift together a heaping cupful of flour and a teaspoonful of baking-powder, and beat this into the other ingredients. Line a hot buttered pan with thick writing paper, well buttered; drop the batter by the spoonful upon the paper, and bake at once in a quick oven. Sift powdered sugar over them while hot.

Vanilla cookies

Cream one cupful of butter with two of sugar, and stir in a cupful of sour cream, two beaten eggs and three cupfuls of flour sifted twice with a teaspoonful of soda. Flavor with vanilla extract. If your dough is not stiff enough to handle, add more sifted flour until it is of the right consistency. Roll into a sheet about a quarter of an inch thick, cut into rounds and bake.

Cocoanut cream puffs

These cakes, while requiring care in their preparation, amply repay one for the time spent in their making.

Into a cupful of hot water stir a half-cupful of butter and bring to a boil. Then add a cupful and a half of flour, and cook (stirring constantly) for two minutes; take from the fire and pour into a bowl to cool. When the mixture is cold beat into it the whipped yolks of four eggs; lastly, the stiffened whites. Line a baking pan with buttered paper; drop the batter by the large spoonful upon it, and bake in a quick oven. The puffs should be done in fifteen minutes. When they are cold cut off the tops, fill with the following mixture and replace the tops.

Filling

Into two cupfuls of thick whipped cream beat a cupful of grated cocoanut, half a cupful of powdered sugar and a teaspoonful of extract of bitter almonds. Whip up hard before putting into the puff shells.

Molasses cookies

Warm a cupful of molasses slightly and beat to a cream with half a cupful of softened butter. Add the juice of half a lemon, one tablespoonful of ginger and half a teaspoonful of cinnamon.

Now stir in two cupfuls of flour sifted three times with an even teaspoonful of baking-soda, until you have a soft dough. Roll out and cut into shapes. Bake in a good oven.

Ginger jumbles

Into two cupfuls of molasses stir a cupful of melted butter, a teaspoonful of ground cinnamon, a tablespoonful of pulverized ginger, and a half a teaspoonful of baking-soda. Beat well, add enough flour to make a soft dough, form with floured hands into small cakes and bake.

Gingersnaps (No. 1)

One cupful of sugar, one cupful of butter, one tablespoonful of ginger, one teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a little water, as much flour as can be stirred in with a spoon—not kneaded. Pinch off a bit of the dough the size of a large marble, roll in the hands until round, pat it flat and place in a pan, leaving between each cake space for spreading; bake in a good oven to a moderate brown. Leave in the pan until sufficiently cool to be “snappy.”

Gingersnaps (No. 2)

Cream a cupful of butter with one of sugar, beat in a cupful of molasses, stir in a cupful of water, a teaspoonful each of ground ginger and cinnamon, a teaspoonful of allspice and a scant one of soda sifted with a pint and a half of flour. Add enough flour to make a dough that can be rolled out, roll thin, cut into rounds, and bake.

Pfeffernüsse

(A German recipe.)

One pound of fine flour, sifted; one teaspoonful of baking-powder; one pound of sugar, sifted; four large eggs; three ounces of citron; the grated rind of one lemon; one grated nutmeg; one teaspoonful of cinnamon; one scant teaspoonful of ground cloves. Mix the baking-powder and spices and sift with the flour, then work in the beaten eggs and sugar; form into small balls and bake in a slow oven. Place in a pan sufficiently far apart to allow them to swell to the size of macaroons when baked.

White peppernuts

Cream one and a half cupfuls of granulated sugar and a half-cupful of butter together, add three eggs, beaten light, a half cupful of milk, two teaspoonfuls of vanilla extract, and flour sifted with two even teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Add this flour until stiff enough to roll out; roll a half inch thick, cut out with a thimble and bake in a hot oven. Care should be taken to put them so far apart that they will not run together in the baking.

Brown peppernuts

Three eggs; one cupful of brown sugar; a half-cupful of butter; one cupful of molasses; a half-cupful of sour or buttermilk; a teaspoonful of baking-soda; a scant teaspoonful of cinnamon and ginger, and flour enough to handle. Mix, roll out and bake as you would white peppernuts.

Peppernuts (No. 4)

Mix together half a pound of powdered sugar, the yolks of two eggs, one whole egg and a quarter-teaspoonful of potash procured from a druggist. Stir this well for fifteen minutes; add a quarter-ounce of ground cinnamon, a quarter-teaspoonful each of ground pepper and cloves, and the grated rind of a lemon. When all is well mixed, put with it half a pound of pastry flour. Knead well on a floured board, roll out about half an inch thick and cut into small rounds with a biscuit cutter. Bake in a greased tin in a very moderate oven.

Peppernuts (No. 5)

Sift together two cupfuls of sugar, four cupfuls of flour, one tablespoonful of cinnamon, half a tablespoonful of cloves, and one and a half teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Add to this half a cupful of citron, chopped fine; the grated rind of a lemon and a quarter of a nutmeg. Make to a dough with four eggs beaten enough to mix yolks and whites. Shape into balls the size of a hickory-nut, with buttered hands, and bake in pans lined with greased paper. When done, cover with an icing.

Icing for peppernuts

Into two tablespoonfuls of boiling water stir enough confectioner’s sugar to make it thick. Flavor with lemon juice and a little of the grated rind. The icing should be of the right consistency to be applied with a pastry brush. Let the cakes stand in a cool, dry place until the icing has hardened.

Vanities (No. 1)

Beat two eggs; stir in a pinch of salt and a half-teaspoonful of rose water; add sifted flour until just stiff enough to roll out. Cut with a cake-cutter and fry quickly in hot cottolene or other fat. Sift powdered sugar on them while hot, and when cool put a teaspoonful of jelly in the center of each.

Vanities (No. 2)

Boil a cupful of milk and thicken it in the saucepan with flour to a stiff dough. Let it become cool, then break in three eggs, one at a time, and beat thoroughly. Add a tablespoonful of melted butter. Drop it by small teaspoonfuls into hot cottolene or some good fat, fry to a delicate brown; drain and roll in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon.

Anise cakes

Cream a half-pound of butter with a half-pound of sugar, add three well-beaten eggs and enough flour to make a stiff dough, adding to the flour an ounce of anise seed. Roll into a thin sheet, cut into shapes with a cutter and bake.

Hermits

Cream together a cupful of butter and two of sugar. Beat in the whipped yolks of three eggs, add a half-cupful of milk and then the beaten whites. Work in two cupfuls of flour, sifted twice with a teaspoonful of baking-powder, and if this does not make a dough that could be rolled out, add more flour cautiously, not to have the cakes too stiff. Roll into a very thin sheet, strew thickly with the kernels of hickory-nuts, pecans or English walnuts, chopped fine and sprinkled with sugar. Fold the dough once over the nuts, passing the rolling-pin lightly over the upper sheet, and cut into rounds with a cake cutter. Bake in a quick oven, covered, for fifteen minutes; uncover and brown.

Plain cookies

(Contributed)

Cream together one cupful of butter and two cupfuls of sugar. Add one egg, well beaten, one cupful of milk, three teaspoonfuls of baking-powder and flour enough to make a soft dough. Roll thin, cut in small cakes and bake in a moderate oven.

Eggless cookies

(Contributed)

Cream one cupful of butter and add one cupful of sweet milk, one teaspoonful of vanilla, and one teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a little warm water. Use flour enough to make a soft dough. Cakes made by this recipe will keep fresh for a long time.

THE DOUGHNUT AND CRULLER FAMILY

These crisp and toothsome dainties may be made several weeks before they are needed, as they improve with age. Keep them in a stone crock, or large tin cracker-box with a closely-fitting cover. As you pack than down, sprinkle each layer with powdered sugar.

Have a large quantity cut out before you begin the work of frying, for when the fat has attained the proper state of heat you will not want to set it to one side to cool while you roll out another batch of the small cakes. Of course, crullers and doughnuts do not really taste better when cut into various shapes, but, since John and the boys fancy that they do, the mother will do well to indulge the innocent notion and to twist and turn the raw dough into fantastic and attractive forms.

Heat the cottolene or other fat used for frying gradually until so hot that a piece of the dough used as a test will rise to the surface at once, swell immediately and brown quickly. As the doughnuts brown, remove them from the kettle with a perforated spoon and lay in a colander, set at the side of the stove, to drain free of grease. Transfer to a platter, and while hot, sprinkle with sugar.

Quick doughnuts

Cream one cupful of sugar with half a cupful of butter, add one cupful of milk, two eggs, beaten light, one tablespoonful of cinnamon and nutmeg mixed, and two cupfuls of flour into which has been sifted a heaping teaspoonful of baking-powder. Work in enough flour to make a soft dough. Roll out into a sheet nearly an inch thick, and cut into shapes with a cutter. Fry in deep cottolene or other fat.

Sour milk doughnuts

Cream a cupful of butter and two cupfuls of sugar; add four beaten eggs, a half-pint of sour milk, a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a little boiling water, a teaspoonful each of nutmeg and cinnamon, and enough flour to make a dough that can be rolled out. Roll and cut into shapes. Fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat, which has been heated slowly.

Mother’s doughnuts

Cream a generous half cupful of butter with two cupfuls of sugar; add three well-beaten eggs, a cupful and a half of milk, and about five cupfuls of flour, which has been sifted with three teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Add this flour gradually until you have enough to make a dough that can be rolled out, as it may not take the full amount. Roll out, cut into rounds, drop into boiling cottolene or other fat and fry to a golden brown. Drain in a colander, and while hot sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Ideal crullers

Rub together a half-pound of butter and three-quarters of a pound of powdered sugar. When you have a soft cream, work in gradually six beaten eggs, a half-teaspoonful each of nutmeg and cinnamon, and by the handful enough flour to enable you to roll out the dough. Avoid getting it too stiff. Roll into a very thin sheet and cut into rings. The centers of the rings make pretty little marble-shaped crullers. Fry in deep boiling cottolene or other fat, which has been heated slowly.

Mary’s crullers

Rub half a pound of butter to a cream with three-quarters of a pound of pulverized sugar. Beat in the yolks of five eggs, whipped smooth; add an even teaspoonful of mace and cinnamon mixed, lastly the stiffened whites of the eggs, alternately with enough flour for a stiff dough. Begin with two cupfuls (sifted). Roll out, cut into fancy shapes and set in a cold place for an hour before frying in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat.

Buttermilk crullers

Into a cupful and a half of granulated sugar rub three-quarters of a cupful of butter, add two eggs, half a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a tablespoonful of hot water, and a cupful and a half of buttermilk. Now sift in enough flour to make a tender dough, roll out and fry.

Sunnybank crullers

Rub together four tablespoonfuls of butter and a generous cupful of powdered sugar; add to the cream thus made half a teaspoonful of powdered cinnamon and beat it in thoroughly. Now add four well-beaten eggs, and whip long and hard. Last of all, sift in very gradually enough flour to make a stiff dough. Roll this out and, with a fancy cake-cutter, cut it into small ornamental shapes. The bits of dough left over may be gathered up, put together and rolled out again, then cut into strips and small squares. After the crullers are cooked and drained free of fat, spread them upon a platter and sprinkle with powdered sugar and cinnamon in the proportion of a teaspoonful of the spice to half a cupful of sugar.

Date crullers

One cup of butter, one and one-half cups of sugar, three eggs. Beat all to a cream. Add one teaspoonful of cinnamon, one of cloves, a cupful of walnut meat in rather large bits; one pound of seeded dates chopped fine; three and a half cupfuls of flour. Mix well, roll into a sheet and cut into shapes. Set in a cold place for an hour and fry in deep fat.

FAMILIAR TALK

A FRIENDLY WORD WITH “OUR MAID”

To begin with—I wish I could devise some method of convincing you that I am really and truly “friendly.”

A newspaper article I have just read says, “It can not be denied that the present attitude of American mistress and maid is, at best, one of armed neutrality.”

Put into everyday English, that means that each is willing, if convenient, to get along comfortably and pleasantly with the other, but that each holds herself ready to fight, if fighting seems to be advisable.

This “attitude” is all wrong, through and through. I should like to change it in your mind before I begin to talk with you.

The best and most wonderful Book ever written tells us that the men who, once upon a time, built the ruined walls and temple of Jerusalem, held a trowel, or spade, or hammer in one hand, and a sword or spear in the other, because their enemies were lying in wait, watching for an opportunity to attack them. We are not surprised to read in the same chapter that these enemies laughed at the sort of work done under such circumstances. They said, “If a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall.” Two hands are better for doing work than one; two heads are better for planning work than one; two hearts at peace with each other are the greatest possible help to head and hands.

Take it for granted when you take a place that your employer is friendly to you. Don’t look upon her as a possible enemy. When she trusts you to handle delicate china, take care of handsome furniture or to cook materials for the meals she and her family are to eat, she shows that she has confidence in your ability and your honesty. When she entrusts her little children to your care, she proves this yet more plainly. After inquiring into your character and manner of work, she is so far satisfied that you are just what she wants that she has received you into her house and, in one sense, into her family. She trusts you, then. Trust her, until she gives you very plain proof that she does not deserve your trust.

For the first month, at least, make up your mind to look on the bright side of everything, instead of asking yourself every hour, “I wonder if I can stay?” That same “wondering” unsettles more maids and prejudices more mistresses’ minds against well-meaning domestics than any other one thing. Make allowances for your employer’s awkward ways of giving orders; for her little “tempers,” that may be awkwardness, too, and a sort of bashfulness you do not understand, but which is not uncommon. More than one well-educated, refined woman has confessed to me that she was “awfully afraid of every new maid.” Some of us have reason to be. Bear in mind, if your new “lady” seems stiff, and, maybe, distrustful of you, that she may have had ugly experiences with some maid who went before you, one of the maids “who spoil places for other girls.”

I wish you could make a resolution—and keep it—not to discuss the mistresses you have had, and especially the mistress you have now, with other maids, in and out of the house which is your present home. I am sorry to be obliged to say that the practice of talking of the hardships of her place is our maid’s most common and incorrigible habit. So common is it that I have wondered sometimes if it were not considered a part of the duty she owes to herself and her companions who are making their living in the same way as herself. If you could once determine that your employer is your friend, that her interests are yours, and that you will make your “place” into a real home, where you may spend years, perhaps the rest of your life—you would not be tempted to magnify the work you have to do, the things you have to put up with—the thousand and one complaints that form so large a part of the talk “downstairs.” If you are so unfortunate as to take service with a bad-tempered, bad-mannered, bad-hearted woman, whose only reason for thinking herself better than you is that she has more money, quietly leave when your month is up. That is the only dignified thing to do. Don’t spoil your temper by fighting her, and waste your breath and time by gossiping about her to your acquaintances.

If, on the other hand, you have an employer who honestly tries to treat you well; who likes you and praises your work, pays your wages regularly, is kind to you in sickness, pleasant in speech and willing to grant you every reasonable indulgence—don’t be afraid to say that she is all this, and that you are comfortable and contented in your present position. I know many such mistresses. I wish I could add that they often have justice done them behind their backs by maids to whom they (the mistresses) are so attached that they will not allow their dearest friends to find fault with them.

It is perfectly natural that you should side with those of your own class and business when a question of ill-usage comes up. If you know of a maid whose wages are not paid, who is scolded unjustly, badly fed and made to work beyond her strength, you are right to sympathize with her. It would also be right to despise her if she did not throw up her place and look for a better. It is still more just to despise one who has none of these things to complain of, and has no intention of making a change, yet speaks of her employer as a cruel mistress, and does all she can to cast discredit upon the family. As a sensible girl you ought to know that, in this country, nobody need keep such a place as she makes out hers to be—and no self-respecting person would keep it.

Try, then, to make the best of your place, and the best of yourself while you are in it. Earn your wages fairly and honestly. There is no better business for a woman in America than domestic service, if you and others like you would combine to keep places so long as to make yourselves a part of the household, and so nearly indispensable that not a member of the family could do without you. Frequent changing is an expensive matter. It is the maid who holds one position for years who is well-dressed, respected and beloved by her employers, and who rolls up a snug account in the savings-bank against marriage or a rainy day.

(Sometimes they mean the same thing!)

Never lose sight of the truth that you are as respectable in your position as the president’s wife in hers, while you perform the duties of that position soberly, honestly and in the fear of God—so much more respectable in your safe, honorable home shelter than the flashy, fast shop-girl and unhealthy, underfed and overdressed factory girl in hers, that we, who are sincerely interested in you, can not but wonder that every clear-headed, modest girl does not see this.

As a last word: Don’t keep overstrict account of “work you were not engaged to do.” I know of no business in the world in which a faithful conscientious worker does not do much for which he is not paid—at least, not paid in money. Dozens of unforeseen tasks, big and little, are coming up, all the time, in every trade and profession, and for everybody from the president down to a peanut peddler. The blessed Book we spoke of just now commands us to do whatever is laid to our hand, “as unto the Lord, and not unto men.” One and all, we should find delight in these extra labors if we could, in our hearts, determine to do them “as unto the dear Lord,” whose mercies to us are past counting. Do what you are “engaged” to do, as unto the employer whose wages you receive, and offer the “extras” as a free-will offering to your Heavenly Father.

“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”

Read and obey the text in this spirit, and that “so” becomes the most important word in this, or in any language.

I hope that you will, in the Father’s good time, become the happy mistress of your own home. In which case you will, I venture to say, keep house and make home the better for the discipline of mind and the adjustment of duties learned in the daily routine of housework. This is your apprenticeship.

DINNER

This, the most important meal of the day, is attended with a certain degree of ceremony in the most modest household. Breakfast may be hurried over in haste that is not unseemly when one considers that the day’s work is all ahead of the family, and luncheon may dwindle down to a “cold bite” eaten standing. Everybody must dine, and dining is always “business.” A dinner party is the most serious of social functions, and even a family dinner follows a prescribed order. There must be a beginning, a middle and an end. Plates must be changed, for even in the backwoods, meat and pudding are not set on the table at the same time.

This is as it should be. If we would have

“Good digestion wait on appetite, and health on both,”

we must bring to the discussion of the heavier nourishment set before us orderliness, leisure and tempers free from annoying discomforts. Magnificence is within the reach of a few; modest elegance is attainable by many; cleanliness and good manners are free to the humblest housemother and her brood.

So much for a general view of the wide field indicated by the word set at the head of this chapter. Before entering upon a discussion of the dishes which belong to this section of our book, I would lay stress upon a cardinal duty connected with dinner—eating—a duty the neglect of which is a proverbial national disgrace.

It is a physical impossibility to eat properly—and to digest with any prospect of healthful assimilation—a breakfast of coffee, steak, hot rolls and fried potatoes, in five minutes, or in fifteen. Yet this is what the commuter, the clerk, the collegian—and a host of other men (including an occasional capitalist) try to do six days in the week. They eat, as they live, on the jump. When an especially audacious jump lands them in the grave, intelligent scientists affect to wonder with the rest of mankind at the untimely taking-off.

Big mouthfuls and bolting are alike part of the national trick advertised in dead earnest, not satirized, by the raucous shout of the brakeman at the half-way house—“Five minutes for refreshments!”

Mr. Gladstone did not consider it undignified to give, as one secret of the sanity of body and mind prolonged through four-score years, his habit of chewing twenty times upon every morsel of meat taken into his mouth. The family physician who attended one of our great men—lately deceased—in his awfully brief final illness, said frankly that certain sharp attacks that had afflicted the statesman for several months before the cruel climax came, were caused by the habit of eating hurriedly such luncheons as he could snatch in the intervals of business. If the truth were told as bravely in thousands of other “mysterious visitations,” business men would be startled and enlightened—if not cured—of like practices.

Dinner—the evening dinner in particular—gives the driven man a chance for his life. He sins against light and opportunity when he carries the bolting habit to the third meal. It may be vulgar to talk of chewing. Our very babies are taught to say “masticate,” instead. It is more vulgar not to do the thing itself.

The cool indifference with which we admit the humiliating truth that our national digestion is chronically out of order, is more culpable even than the shiftless amiability with which we condone municipal and corporation murders. The individual citizen may well draw back from the task of fighting boards and millions. His digestive apparatus is his own, subject to no lien or disability except such as sloth and carelessness put upon it.

If there be a self-evident fact in everyday hygiene it is that food swallowed without chewing, clogs and irritates the stomach. No other health law is so shamelessly and constantly transgressed by the human animal whose habitat is the United States of America. The most stupid lout of a hostler knows that a horse must have time for chewing his oats, or he will go hungry; the scullion will tell you that, while chickens bolt whole corn and gobble down worms, the gizzard stands sentinel over the stomach, doing thoroughly the part of grinders and incisors. The cow sets us the best example of all our sensible dumb teachers. The wondrous-wise air with which she munches cud by the hour is a proverb among sages. The so-called nobler part of creation is not ashamed to seek in the pepsin, which is a memorial to her wisdom, a remedy for the ills brought upon himself by obstinate disregard of the duty her example enforces.

It is not a nice thing to talk or write of, as I have admitted. And this is not because the act of mastication is unseemly. The measured movement of the jaws in the decorous disposition of whatever is committed to them is no more grotesque than the “winking as usual,” enjoined by the photographer. This is emphatically true when food is cut small before it is eaten.

The stomach is long-suffering and kind, but not omnipotent. The salivary glands are her natural and most efficient allies. The “bolter” cuts off supplies from this source. The chunks of solid matter, washed down with scalding liquid or iced water, are more than the other gastric juices can manage. The result is as sure as the addition of two and two, followed by the subtraction of four.

A judicious mother who has made physiology a study for her children’s sake, teaches her little ones to chew the well-cooked cereals that form the staple of their breakfast. Furthermore, she teaches that it is indecent to swallow anything except liquids without chewing it. The rule is not arbitrary. Each child comprehends the office of the saliva, that the motion of chewing excites it, and that to take crude lumps of anything into the stomach is absolutely wrong.

In the chance that other mothers may imitate her example lies the only hope of the American stomach. The adult bolter is joined to his evil practice. He is feeding with egg-coal an engine that was built to be run with pea coal, adding to the mischief done the delicate machinery the outrage of chunking in and packing down the fuel.

SOUPS

It is a progressive age and the average American housewife is slowly coming to some appreciation of the nutritive value of soups as an article of daily food. As a rule of wide application, she does not yet credit how easy it is to prepare them. Some one says that the motto for the would-be soup-maker should be, “strong stock and no grease.” What might be a good soup is unpalatable if globules of grease float on the surface, and it takes a hungry man, without a fastidious taste, to enjoy it under these circumstances. See to it then that all meat-stocks are perfectly skimmed when very cold, that every vestige of fat may be removed.

A good soup stock

Four pounds of beef marrow bones, well cracked; one pound of coarse lean beef chopped as for beef-tea, and the same of lean veal; one large onion, one carrot, one turnip, six refuse stalks of celery, a cabbage leaf; seven quarts of cold water; prepare and salt to taste.

Put the meat and vegetables, the latter cut up small, into a large pot, cover with the water and set at the side of the range where it will not reach the scalding point under an hour. Keep closely covered and let it simmer, always scalding hot, never boiling hard, for six hours. Remove from the fire, season and set in a cool place until next day. Remove the fat, strain out bones and vegetables, pressing hard to extract all the nourishment and set away in the refrigerator until needed.

At least one dozen varieties of soups and broths can be founded upon this stock.

White stock

Put over the fire two pounds of the cheaper part of veal, cut into small pieces, or a well-cracked knuckle of veal, with three quarts of cold water, a sliced onion, a bay-leaf and a couple of stalks of celery cut into pieces. Let it come to a boil slowly, and simmer for five or six hours. Season with salt and pepper and set aside to get cold. Remove the fat, take out the bones and you will have a thick jelly. This can be heated, skimmed and, if desired, strained before it is used. It will be a strong and nutritious stock.

“Left-over” stock

Have a crock in your refrigerator expressly for this. Collect for it the bones of cooked meats from which the meat has been carved; the carcasses of poultry, bits of gristly roasts and steaks, cold vegetables, even a baked apple now and then. Twice a week, put all, cracking the bones well, into the stock-pot; cover deep with cold water and cook slowly until the liquid is reduced to half the original quantity. Season to taste, and strain, rubbing all through the colander that will pass.

By addition of barley, rice, tomatoes or, in fact, almost any vegetable or cereal, you may make excellent broths from this compound of “unconsidered trifles.”

Mock turtle soup

Boil a calf’s head until the meat leaves the bones. Leave it in the seasoned soup until next day, then take it out, scrape off the fat and remove the bones. Put the jellied stock over the fire with the bones, the ears, chopped, one grated carrot, one sliced onion, a bunch of soup herbs, a teaspoonful of allspice, a saltspoonful of paprika and salt to taste. Boil for one hour. Take from the fire, strain, thicken with two tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in as much browned flour, add two teaspoonfuls of kitchen bouquet, and, when the soup is thickened, drop in the tongue and parts of the cheek cut into dice. Add a gill of sherry and the juice of a lemon and pour upon forcemeat balls in a hot tureen. Make the forcemeat balls by rubbing the brains to a paste with the yolk of a hard-boiled egg, a little browned flour and the yolk of a raw egg. Roll them in brown flour and let them stand in a quick oven until lightly crusted over.

Veal and tapioca soup

Crack a knuckle of veal into six pieces and put over the fire with a cracked ham bone, if you have it. If not, use a half-pound of lean salt pork, chopped, or the soaked rind of salt pork or corned ham. Add a few stalks of celery, chopped. Cover with cold water, adding a quart for every pound of meat and bones. Cover, and bring slowly to the boil. Simmer then for five hours, or until the liquor is reduced to one-half the original quantity. Season with pepper, salt and onion juice and set away until next day, when remove the fat.

You have now a thick jelly. Set over the fire to melt. When you can pour it easily, strain out the bones and scraps of meat. Put half a cupful of tapioca to soak in a cupful of cold water for two hours. Measure a quart of your veal stock and put over the fire to heat. When the boil is reached, add the tapioca, a scant tablespoonful of kitchen bouquet, with a tablespoonful of finely minced parsley and cook fifteen minutes longer, boiling briskly.

Veal and sago broth

Make stock as directed in last recipe, adding, when it has been skimmed and strained, half a cupful of pearl sago, previously soaked for three hours in warm water. Simmer for half an hour. Have ready in a saucepan a cupful of hot milk, into which a bit of soda has been dropped; stir into it a tablespoonful of butter rolled in half as much flour, and when it has thickened, turn into the sago broth two minutes before removing it from the fire.

Veal and rice broth

To a quart of your veal stock add half a cupful of washed and soaked rice; cook for twenty minutes, fast, and mix with hot milk, thickened as directed in last recipe. Cook three minutes and serve.

Ox-tail soup

Cut a cleaned ox-tail at each joint and fry five minutes in butter or good dripping. Take out the meat and put into a warmed soup-kettle while you fry a sliced onion in the dripping left in the frying-pan. Turn this, with the fat, upon the pieces of ox-tail, rinse out the frying-pan with hot water and add this to the soup-kettle. Now cover with two quarts of cold water; slice a carrot thin, mince four stalks of celery and add these to the water. Cover closely and simmer for five hours. Season to taste and set aside until next day, remove the fat and strain the liquor from meat and vegetables. Pick out the best joints and return to the soup. Heat to a fast boil, skim, add kitchen bouquet to taste, and serve. There should be two or three joints in each portion. Some cooks slice two or three very small carrots, parboil them and put into the strained liquor with the joints before giving the last boil.

Clear brown soup

After making, cooling and skimming your stock as directed in the beginning of this chapter, measure out a quart; put over the fire and when lukewarm stir in the white of a raw egg. Bring quickly to a boil, stirring all the time. As soon as it bubbles, take from the fire, pour in a little very cold water and let it stand for three minutes. Then pour slowly off the dregs through a flannel bag, or a double cloth. Let it drip as you would jelly. When all has run through, return to the fire with a little soaked tapioca, or a handful of “manestra”, such as comes in shapes for soups; simmer five minutes, color with kitchen bouquet, or with caramel, and serve.

Clear soup with poached eggs

Make as directed above, but without tapioca or other cereal. Have ready as many neatly poached eggs as there will be people at table, and when the hot soup is in the tureen slip these carefully into it.

Caramel for coloring soups

Put two tablespoonfuls of sugar into a small tin cup and let it melt, then bubble over the fire. When you have a seething brown (not burnt) mass, pour in two tablespoonfuls of boiling water and stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Put in enough to color your clear soup, but not enough to make it sweet.

Clear soup á la royale

To cleared soup made according to directions given for making and clearing stock, add minute squares of paste made thus:

Heat half a cupful of milk in a saucepan with a bit of soda. In a frying-pan cook a tablespoonful of butter and stir into it two of flour. Turn the milk gradually upon this, and, when well incorporated, a scant half-cupful of soup stock. In a bowl have ready two whipped eggs and pour upon them, stirring well, the hot mixture. Return to the fire, stir to a thick paste and pour upon a buttered platter to cool. Set on ice to harden for at least six hours before cutting into tiny blocks. The soup must not boil after they go in.

Glasgow broth

One quart of strong mutton stock, from which every particle of fat has been removed. The liquor in which a leg of mutton has been boiled will do well for this purpose. Boil it down for an hour before making the broth, as it should be strong.

One cupful of barley that has been soaked in tepid water for three hours. One large carrot, one turnip, two onions, four stalks of celery, half a cupful of green peas and the same of string-beans, parsley and four or five leek tops.

Cut the vegetables up small and parboil them for ten minutes. Drain and put over the fire in the stock. Simmer slowly for three hours. Have ready a good white roux made by heating a heaping tablespoonful of butter in a pan and stirring into it a tablespoonful of flour. Add a few spoonfuls of the soup to thin it, and stir into the broth. Boil one minute and serve.

This recipe, given to me in rhymes a century old by a distinguished professor in the University of Glasgow, is the genuine Scotch broth dear to the Scottish heart and stomach. It is nowhere as delicious as in the Highlands, but it is good everywhere.

Mulligatawney soup

(An East Indian recipe.)

Joint a large fowl, as for fricassee, and cut into small pieces a pound of lean veal. Slice two onions and fry them in butter; pare, quarter and core two sour apples. Put all these into a saucepan with six quarts of cold water. Add four cloves and four pepper corns, cover closely and let it simmer until the fowl is tender. Remove it and cut the meat from the bones into small pieces. Return the bones to the kettle and add one level tablespoonful of curry powder, one level teaspoonful, each, of salt and sugar mixed to a smooth paste with a little water.

Simmer another hour, or until reduced one-half, strain the soup, let it stand all night and remove the fat. Put it on to boil again, add the pieces of fowl and one cupful of boiled rice. This will make a large quantity of soup. Send around with it bananas, chilled by burying them in ice, for those who relish this accompaniment to curry dishes.

Chicken cream soup (No. 1)

Cut up a large fowl and beat with a mallet to crack the bones; pour in five quarts of cold water, cover closely and simmer for four hours more, until the chicken is perfectly tender. Take the meat off the bones, take out the skin. Return the soup to the fire with a part of the meat chopped fine, salt, pepper, a little boiled rice and butter rolled in flour. Just before taking from the fire add a small teacupful of cream heated with a pinch of soda; add a tablespoonful of chopped parsley and boil for one minute.

You may further enrich this excellent soup by beating up two eggs and stirring them into it just before taking from the fire. A still better way is to pour a little of the soup upon the eggs to avoid curdling, then add to the rest.

Chicken cream soup (No. 2)

(An English recipe)

One cupful of cold roast chicken, chopped as fine as powder; a pint of strong chicken broth; a cupful of sweet cream; half a cupful of bread or cracker-crumbs; three yolks of eggs; one teaspoonful of salt; one-half teaspoonful of pepper.

Soak the crumbs in a little of the cream. Bring the broth to boiling point and add the meat. Break the eggs, separating the yolks and whites. Drop the yolks carefully into boiling water and boil hard; then rub to a powder and add to the soup with the cream and the seasoning. Simmer ten minutes and serve hot.

Beef bouillon

Put together in an agate-lined saucepan two pounds of lean beef, minced; one-half pound of lean veal, also minced, and two pounds, each, of beef and veal bones, well cracked. Cover deep with cold water and bring slowly to a boil, then simmer for four hours. Season with salt, pepper and two teaspoonfuls of kitchen bouquet, then remove from the fire. When very cold and like a jelly, skim all fat from the surface of the soup and heat to enable you to strain out the bones and meat. Return to the fire, drop in the white of an egg and a crushed egg-shell, bring to a boil, drop in a bit of ice to check ebullition and, five minutes later, pour carefully, not to disturb the dregs, through a colander lined with white flannel. You may now heat it to scalding, add a glass of sherry and eat it hot, or set on ice when cold until you can have it as “iced-bouillon.” It is good in either way.

Bouillon á la russe

Make as just directed and serve in cups, laying a delicately poached egg upon the surface of the steaming liquid.

Chicken bouillon (No. 1)

Cut a large fowl into pieces; put into a porcelain-lined kettle and cover with cold water. Set at the side of the range and simmer for four hours. Season with celery salt, pepper and onion juice, and set away to cool. When cold skim off the fat and strain out the bones and meat. Return to the fire, and when hot, add a quarter of a box of gelatine that has soaked for an hour in a gill of water. When the gelatine is dissolved, take the soup from the fire, strain through a cheese-cloth bag, and serve it when you have reheated it, or set aside to cool, afterward keeping it in ice, when you may enjoy delicious “iced and jellied chicken bouillon.”

Chicken bouillon (No. 2)

Cut a four-pound fowl into pieces and put it over the fire with four quarts of cold water. Bring very slowly to the boiling point, and simmer gently for three hours, or until the meat is so tender that it slips from the bones. Add half of a sliced onion and three stalks of celery, and simmer for an hour longer. Turn into a bowl and set in a cold place for some hours. When thoroughly chilled remove the fat from the surface of the soup, strain out the bones and skim. If the liquor is jellied after skimming it, set it on the fire long enough to melt the jelly from the bones. Strain through coarse muslin, letting it drip through, but not squeezing the bag. Put over the fire and, when lukewarm, throw in the unbeaten white and broken shell of an egg; stir to a quick boil and again strain through muslin after seasoning to taste.

Gumbo (No. 1)

(A Creole recipe)

Cut a fowl at every joint and fry for five minutes in good dripping or in butter. Remove the meat and put into a soup kettle. Cook two sliced onions in the fat left in the frying-pan. Put into the kettle with the chicken half a pound of lean salt pork, or corned ham, cut into small bits, and the fried onions. Add two quarts of cold water, and bring slowly to a boil, after which you should let it simmer two hours. Add, now, two dozen young okra pods, half a pod of green pepper, chopped, and half a can of tomatoes, or a pint of fresh, cut small, and simmer till the chicken is tender. Remove the larger bones, add salt to taste, and five minutes before serving add one pint of fine, sweet corn pulp, scraped from the cob, or one small can of canned corn, or one pint of oysters. Stir in a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, boil a few minutes and serve. If fresh okra can not be obtained, use the canned.

Gumbo (No. 2)

This delicious soup may be made with oysters, or shrimps, or chicken. Brown one small onion in a heaping tablespoonful of butter. Add one quart of sliced okra, and fry it well, stirring all the time to prevent burning. Now add half a gallon of hot water and let it cook until simmered down to one quart. Add three ripe tomatoes and the chicken, or oysters, or shrimps. If the chicken is used it must have been previously stewed tender, in which case use the broth instead of the hot water. Season to taste with salt and cayenne, and serve with a tablespoonful of rice for each soup-plate.

Julienne soup

Marion Harland's Complete Cook Book (part 1 of 3)

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Marion Harland's Complete Cook Book