Mrs. Cornelius

“ There is no one thing upon which health and comfort in a [Pg 23] family so much depend as bread. With good bread the coarsest fare is tolerable; without it, the most luxurious table is not comfortable.
It is best economy to purchase the best flour, even at an extra cost. Good flour adheres slightly to the hand, and if pressed in it, shows the impress of the lines of the skin. Dough made of it is a yellowish white, and does not stick to the hands after sufficient kneading. There is much bad flour in market, which can in no way be made into nutritious food. ”

“ Learn so to systematize your concerns, that each day of the week shall have its appropriate work, and every domestic know, without being prompted, what she is to do on that day. Observe whether all do their appropriate work; but do not prompt them, unless you see that they are likely to forget. They should learn to feel the responsibility to be on their own memory—not yours. ”

“ An invalid, speaking of the kindness of a neighbor in sending him some slices of corned beef, said, "They were cut with a sharp knife." For the sake of economy, if for no other reason, carve smoothly, and only as much as is wanted at first. It is easy to cut more for replenishing plates; and meat is far better not to lie sliced in the dish. If no more is cut than is used, a handsome piece [Pg 119] may often be reserved for the next day; whereas if all is cut up it cannot be so good, and some of it will certainly be wasted.
Ham and tongue should be sliced very thin. ”

“ In very hot weather, especially in August, which is the least favorable month for making butter, a heaping spoonful of salt should be put into a pailful of milk, after the portion for the ordinary family uses is taken out; and at all seasons, fine salt should be put into the cream from day to day, as it is gathered. The effect of this is excellent, in keeping it sweet and giving a rich flavor to the butter.
The finest butter is made where the number of cows renders it necessary to churn every day. The custom of churning once a week is not to be tolerated. ”

“ In winter, all meat may be kept a long time; and, with the exception of pork, is much better for it; therefore it is easier to furnish a table without waste in winter than in summer. Meat will keep in an ice-house or a good refrigerator several days in hot weather; if you have neither, take your meat the moment it is brought in, wipe it dry if at all damp, and hang it in the cellar, sprinkling first a little pepper and salt over it, especially over the parts which flies are most apt to visit. In mutton and lamb, these are the tenderloin and the large end of the leg. ”

“ Much of the richness of the apple is in the skin and core. Boil them in water enough to cover them, and when they become very soft, put the whole into a coarse linen bag, and suspend it between two chairs, with a pan under it, and leave it until it ceases to drip. Then press it a very little. Allow a pound of fine sugar to a pint of apple-syrup. If you choose, add the juice of a lemon to every quart of syrup. Boil up the apple-syrup, and skim it; heat the sugar in a dish in the stove oven, and add it as the syrup boils up, after being skimmed. ”

“ The situation of a waiting-maid is, in some families, one of hard bondage. It seems as if her employers had forgotten that she is made of flesh and blood, and is therefore capable of having an aching head and weary limbs. ”

“ A bread pudding is easily made, by boiling the pieces in milk. You can make as rich a pudding as you choose, by adding sugar, eggs, suet, spice, and raisins; or as plain a one, putting no sugar, two eggs, and a few sliced apples to a quart of milk, and boil or bake it. Make crumb cakes of some of the pieces. Boil a dish of others in milk for breakfast. If you are cooking meat that requires or admits of a stuffing, soften crusts with a very little boiling water, add butter, herbs, and a beaten egg. ”

“ If meat is old, or has become tainted in the least, the defect is peculiarly offensive in soup. All meat and bones for soup should be boiled a long time, and set aside until the next day in order that the fat may be entirely removed. Then add the vegetables, rice, and herbs, and boil it from an hour to an hour and a half. The water in which fresh meat is boiled should be saved for soup and broth; and the bones of roast beef should never be thrown away without boiling, as they make excellent soup, and if not used for this purpose, should be boiled in order to save the fat which they contain. ”

“ When cream or sour milk is to be put in, half of it should be added when half the flour is mixed in; then the remainder of the flour, and then the saleratus dissolved in the other half of the cream or milk. Lastly, add the spice, wine, lemon-juice, or fruit.
In summer do not stir cake with the hand; the warmth of it makes it less light. A wooden spoon, kept on purpose, is the best thing. In winter, soften, but do not melt the butter, before using it. Cake not raised with yeast, should be baked as soon as it is made, except such as is hard enough to be rolled. ”

“ If all the materials used are good, and the dough has not been permitted to sour, white bread is far better without saleratus, except that which is made with water. If dough has become sour, a teaspoonful of saleratus for every quart of the milk or water that was used for wetting the bread, will be sufficient to correct it. The tray or pan in which the bread is made, should be scalded after being washed, every time it is used, except in cold weather. It is not good economy to buy skimmed milk, as some persons do, for making bread. ”

“ It is not well to salt meat at first, as salt extracts the juices. In roasting all meats, the art depends chiefly on flouring thoroughly, basting frequently, and turning so often as not to allow any part to burn.
To roast in a cooking stove, it is necessary to attend carefully to the fire, lest the meat should burn. Lay it into the pan with three or four gills of water in it. Turn the pan around often, that all the parts may roast equally. When it is about half done, flour it again, turn it over that the lower side may become brown. ”

“ Stew the apple with water enough to prevent its burning; sweeten and flavor it to your taste, and, while it is hot, add butter in the proportion of a dessert spoonful to a quart of apple. The spices most appropriate are nutmeg and lemon, cinnamon and orange. Two kinds are enough; one does very well. When you have laid the under crust in the plate, roll out the upper one, so that it may be laid on the moment the apple is put in, as the under crust will be clammy if the pie is not put immediately into the oven. ”

“ When you broil fish, rub the gridiron with lard or drippings, [Pg 154] to prevent its sticking. Do not attempt to turn it like steaks, with a knife and fork, but lay an old dish upon it, and hold it on with one hand, while you turn over the gridiron with the other. Lay the skin side down first.
Fish that is to be fried, should be cut up and laid in a cloth for an hour that the moisture may be absorbed. It should then be rolled in fine bread crumbs, or Indian meal. That which is apt to break in frying may be kept whole by being dipped in a beaten egg, before it is rolled in the bread crumbs. ”

“ Put a quart of milk, except two or three spoonfuls, to boil; rub smooth a small table-spoonful of flour in the reserved milk; when that in the saucepan begins to boil, stir in a piece of butter, rather larger than an egg, cut up in little bits. Stir steadily until it is all melted; then stir in the flour, and add a teaspoonful of salt. When it boils up again, set it where it will keep hot, without boiling, while the bread is toasted. Bread is not good when it is dried in the process of toasting; it should be browned quickly, and dipped while it is hot. ”

“ In the winter, dough may be kept sweet many days in a place where it will be cold, without freezing, and it will grow better till the last. It should be raised light, then kneaded a little, and then covered with a damp cloth, so that a dry crust will not form on the top. Fresh bread can thus be furnished for the table every day, without extra work. Doughnuts, bread, cake, or rusks can be made of it by adding butter, sugar, and spice; tea biscuit also, fried biscuit, crust for apple dumpling, and for pan pie. ”

“ Attention and practice will teach when cake is well baked. When it is done enough, it settles a little away from the pan. Even well made cake becomes heavy by being taken out of the oven before it is perfectly baked. Moving it carelessly while it is baking will also make light cake fall. If you have occasion to change the position of the pans, do it gently.
A tin chest or a stone jar is good to keep cake in, and it is a good way to let that which is not to be kept long, remain in the tins in which it was baked.
Directions for beating the Whites of Eggs. ”

“ Pork, to be the best, should not be more than a year old. The chine is the best roasting piece; the spare-ribs are very sweet food, but too rich to be healthy. The shoulder is good roasted, stuffed with bread and sage. If too large, half of it can be laid a week or two in brine, and will be good boiled, to eat cold. It is well for a small family, in November to buy half of a spring pig; this will furnish several nice pieces to roast, strips for salting, a ham and shoulder for smoking, and leaf enough for a pot or two of lard, besides remnants for sausage meat. ”

“ If you keep several domestics, arrange their work so that there shall be as little collision with one another, as possible. Be as considerate of their comfort, as you could reasonably wish others to be of yours in like circumstances. An universal obedience to the Golden Rule would make this world a paradise, and perhaps it is more liable to be forgotten in this relation than in most others. The best management on your part, cannot always save those who serve you from weariness and vexation ”

“ If your family is large, so that most of it will be eaten the first day, it is best to take out the bone, which is easily done with a sharp knife, the knuckle having been cut off by the butcher. Put this bone aside with the knuckle for a broth. If you design to use what is left cold for dinner the next day, let the bone remain in, as it keeps the leg in better shape. Prepare a stuffing of bread, pepper, salt pork, and sweet marjoram; make deep incisions in [Pg 132] the meat and fill them with it. Fasten the fold of fat which is usually upon the fillet over the stuffed incisions with a skewer. ”

“ To fry pork steaks requires twenty-five or thirty minutes. Turn them often. If they are quite fat, pour off all that fries out when they are half done, and reserve it for some other use. Then dip the steaks in crumbs of bread with a little powdered sage, and lay them back into the frying-pan. When done [Pg 137] through, take them up, dredge a little browned flour into the gravy, put in salt, pour in a gill of boiling water, and turn it instantly, as it boils up, upon the dish of steaks. ”

“ Young geese have yellow bills, and the feet are yellow and supple; the skin may be easily broken by the head of a pin; the breast is plump, and the fat white. An old goose is unfit for the human stomach.
To keep fowls in warm weather, take out the heart and liver and parboil them, set them aside in a cool place, to be used in the gravy. Wash the fowls as clean as possible from the blood, and plunge one at a time into a kettle of boiling water for five minutes, moving it about, that the water may penetrate every part. Drain and wipe them dry and pepper the inside and the necks. ”

“ Everybody likes a light crust, a little brown, and not excessively rich, better than one that is half butter or lard, and baked white.
Cherries should not be stewed or stoned for pies. Apples, after they are pared, cut, and cored, should be washed. Steam pumpkin and squash, or stew it with very little water. Meat for pies must not be chopped till after it is cold.
After a little practice and observation, it will be just as well to omit weighing the materials for pastry. One very heaping handful of flour will make a common-sized pie ”

“ Put all kinds, except peas and beans, into boiling water, with a little salt in it. Hard water spoils peas, and is not good for any vegetables; a very little saleratus or soda will rectify it. Peas are much best when first gathered, and they should not be shelled long before boiling. If they are old, a salt-spoon of soda in the water will make them tender. Asparagus should not be cut so far below the surface of the ground as it usually is for market; the white end never boils tender. Sweet potatoes require a third longer time to cook than the common ones. ”

“ Salt meat should boil longer than fresh; allow forty minutes for every pound.
A tongue that has been cured with saltpetre and smoked, should soak over night, and be boiled at least four hours; it is not easy to boil it too much, and nothing is more disagreeable or indigestible than a tongue not well boiled. A ham, if very salt, should also be soaked over night, and should be boiled from three to five hours, according to the size, unless you prefer to cook it the last half of the time in the oven, as is directed in the receipt for cooking a ham or shoulder. ”

“ Adversity succeeds prosperity like a sudden inundation, and sweeps away the possessions and the hopes of multitudes. The poor and uneducated are often rapidly elevated to wealthy independence, while the refined and highly educated are compelled to taste the bitterness of poverty ”

“ There is no advantage in putting salt into lard. It does not mingle with it, as appears by its being always found at the bottom of the kettle, undissolved. Stone jars are best for keeping lard, but potter's ware does very well. It should stand in a cold place, and in warm weather, a fire-place with a close board, in a cool room, is a very good place to keep it.
Scraps are a favorite dish with many persons. Put salt, pepper, and pulverized sage to them, while they are still warm, break them small, and stir them well that the seasoning may be equally distributed. ”

“ To make a very good dish for breakfast, cut cold potatoes quite small, and put them into a saucepan or spider, with milk enough almost, but not entirely, to cover them. When the milk becomes hot, stir and mash the potatoes with a large spoon until there are no lumps. Add salt, and a small bit of butter, stir it often, until it is as dry as you wish to have it. It is a nicer dish, when prepared with so much milk that a good deal of stirring is necessary to make it dry, than if done in but a small quantity. ”