Part 7 (2/2)

Poultry in summer should always have a piece of charcoal tied in a rag placed in the stomach, to be removed before cooking. Pieces of charcoal should also be put in the refrigerator and changed often.

Oyster sh.e.l.ls put one at a time in a stove that is ”clinkered” will clean the bricks entirely. They should be put in when the fire is burning brightly.

Salt and soapstone powder (to be bought at the druggist's) mend fire brick; use equal quant.i.ties, make into a paste with water, and cement the brick; they will be as strong as new ones.

Ink spilled on carpets may be entirely removed by rubbing while wet with blotting paper, using fresh as it soils.

CHAPTER XVI.

ON SOME TABLE PREJUDICES.

MANY people have strong prejudices against certain things which they have never even tasted, or which they do frequently take and like as a part of something else, without knowing it. How common it is to hear and see untraveled people declare that they dislike garlic, and could not touch anything with it in. Yet those very people will take Worcesters.h.i.+re sauce, in which garlic is actually predominant, with everything they eat; and think none but English pickles eatable, which owe much of their excellence to the introduction of a _soupcon_ of garlic. Therefore I beg those who actually only know garlic from hearsay abuse of it, or from its presence on the breath of some inveterate garlic eater, to give it a fair trial when it appears in a recipe. It is just one of those things that require the most delicate handling, for which the French term a ”_suspicion_” is most appreciated; it should only be a suspicion, its presence should never be p.r.o.nounced. As Blot once begged his readers, ”Give garlic a fair trial in a _remolade_ sauce.” (Montpellier b.u.t.ter beaten into mayonnaise is a good _remolade_ for cold meat or fish.)

Curry is one of those things against which many are strongly prejudiced, and I am inclined to think it is quite an acquired taste, but a taste which is an enviable one to its possessors; for them there is endless variety in all they eat. The capabilities of curry are very little known in this country, and, as the taste for it is so limited, I will not do more in its defense than indicate a pleasant use to which it may be put, and in which form it would be a welcome condiment to many to whom ”a curry,” pure and simple, would be obnoxious. I once knew an Anglo-Indian who used curry as most people use cayenne; it was put in a pepper-box, and with it he would at times pepper his fish or kidneys, even his eggs.

Used in this way, it imparts a delightful piquancy to food, and is neither hot nor ”spicy.”

Few people are so prejudiced as the English generally, and the stay-at-home Americans; but the latter are to be taught by travel, the Englishman rarely.

The average Briton leaves his island sh.o.r.es with the conviction that he will get nothing fit to eat till he gets back, and that he will have to be uncommonly careful once across the channel, or he will be having frica.s.seed frogs palmed on him for chicken. Poor man! in his horror of frogs, he does not know that the Paris restaurateur who should give the costly frog for chicken, would soon end in the bankruptcy court.

”If I could only get a decent dinner, a good roast and plain potato, I would like Paris much better,” said an old Englishman to me once in that gay city.

”But surely you can.”

”No; I have been to restaurants of every cla.s.s, and called for beefsteak and roast beef, but have never got the real article, although it's my belief,” said he, leaning forward solemnly, ”that I have eaten _horse_ three times this week.” Of course the Englishman of rank, who has spent half his life on the continent, is not at all the _average_ Englishman.

Americans think the hare and rabbits, of which the English make such good use, very mean food indeed, and if they are unprejudiced enough to try them, from the fact that they are never well cooked, they dislike them, which prejudice the English reciprocate by looking on squirrels as being as little fit for food as a rat. And a familiar instance of prejudice from ignorance carried even to insanity, is that of the Irish in 1848, starving rather than eat the ”yaller male,” sent them by generous American sympathizers; yet they come here and soon get over that dislike. Not so the French, who look on oatmeal and Indian meal as most unwholesome food. ”_ca pese sur l'estomac, ca creuse l'estomac_,” I heard an old Frenchwoman say, trying to dissuade a mother from giving her children mush.

The moral of all of which is, that for our comfort's sake, and the general good we should avoid unreasonable prejudices against unfamiliar food. We of course have a right to our honest dislikes; but to condemn things because we have heard them despised, is prejudice.

CHAPTER XVII.

A CHAPTER OF ODDS AND ENDS--VALEDICTORY.

I HAVE alluded, in an earlier chapter, to the fact that many inexperienced cooks are afraid of altering recipes; a few words on this subject may not be out of place. As a rule, a recipe should be faithfully followed in all important points; for instance, in making soup you cannot because you are short of the given quant.i.ty of meat, put the same amount of water as directed for the full quant.i.ty, without damaging your soup; but you may easily reduce water and _every other ingredient_ in the same proportion; and, in mere matters of flavoring, you may vary to suit circ.u.mstances. If you are told to use cloves, and have none, a bit of mace may be subst.i.tuted.

If you read a recipe, and it calls for something you have not, consider whether that something has anything to do with the substance of the dish, or whether it is merely an accessory for which something else can be subst.i.tuted. For instance, if you are ordered to use cream in a sauce, milk with a larger amount of well-washed b.u.t.ter may take its place; but if you are told to use cream for charlotte russe or trifles, there is no way in which you could make milk serve, since it is not an accessory but the chief part of those dishes. For a cake in which cream is used, b.u.t.ter whipped to a cream may take its place. Wine is usually optional in savory dishes; it gives richness only.

Again, in cakes be very careful the exact proportions of flour, eggs, and milk are observed; of b.u.t.ter you can generally use more or less, having a more or less rich cake in proportion. In any but plain cup cakes (which greatly depend on soda and acid for their lightness) never lessen the allowance of eggs; never add milk if a cake is too stiff (but an extra egg may always be used), unless milk is ordered in the recipe, when more or less may be used as needed. Flavoring may be always varied.

In reducing a recipe always reduce _every ingredient_, and it can make no difference in the results. Sometimes, in cookery books, you are told to use articles not frequently found in ordinary kitchens; for instance, a larding-needle (although that can be bought for twenty-five cents at any house-furnis.h.i.+ng store, and should always be in a kitchen); but, in case you have not one for meat, you may manage by making small cuts and inserting slips of bacon.

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