Dishcloth

“ If any one has not the experience or the imagination to supply details of the subdued clatter of soap-dishes and glasses, varied by heavy falls of coal and hair-brushes, or of the piercing squeak of each drawer as it opens and shuts, neither will they realize the significance of a basin-cloth left on the floor just where it catches the eye. ”

“ Then, too, it is my invariable habit at the end to turn the wash-bowl upside down to drain, and spread the dish-cloth upon it to dry. It occurs to me that these may appear small matters to some, but is not life composed of such, and do they not often turn out to be the greater? And our uninvited guest disorganised the entire routine by pathetic efforts at buffoonery such as tying one of Doris's aprons about his waist, making a napkin-ring climb his finger by a circular motion of the hand, and laughing openly at what he evidently regarded as our fads. ”

“ There was nearly always a piled-up mass of dishes and skillets and sauce-pans in the house—to Thyrsis these soiled dishes were the original source of the myth of Sisyphus and his labor.
And then there was the garbage-pail that he had forgotten to empty, and the lamps he had neglected to fill, and the slop-pails and the other utensils of domesticity. There were the diapers that somebody had to wash—and outside was always the bitter, merciless cold, that drove them in and shut them up with all this horror. ”

“ To take the Clouts the more conveniently, you hold a back of a Ladle or skimming-dish against the further side of the Clout, that it may not slide away when the Latton slice shuffeth it on the other side to get under it, and so the Clout will mingle together or dubble up, which makes it the thicker, and the more graceful. When you have laid a good Laire of Clouts in the dish, put upon it a little more fresh raw or boiled cream, and then fill it up with the rest of the Clouts. ”

“ Imagination and a due sense of proportion are as necessary in cooking as in any other art—more so than in some, for Impressionism in the kitchen simply means indigestion. Digestion is the business of the human interior, indigestion that of the doctor. It is so easy to cook indigestible things that a savoury cunningly concocted of Bismuth and Pepsine would seem an almost necessary adjunct to the menu (or Carte Dinatoire, as the French Revolutionists called it) of the budding Chafist. ”

“ One can devil bones, biscuits, meat and fish in a Chafing Dish very nearly as well as on the grill. Care must be taken always to score the flesh across with deep incisions, so that the devil mixture penetrates well into the meat. ”

“ After an hour and half, or two hours, put in a Capon, and four or five Cloves; when it is within a good half hour of being boiled enough, put in such herbs, as you intend, as Sorrel, Lettice, Purslane, Borage and Bugloss, or Green-pease; and in the Winter, Parsley-roots and White-endive, or Navets, &c. so pour the broth upon tosted light bread, and let it stew a while in the dish covered. You should never put in fresh water. And if you should through the consuming of the water by long boiling, it must be boiling hot. ”

“ In their case the digestive organs are no longer a simple sac with a single orifice; there is a mouth, a pharynx, a gullet, a gizzard, a membranous stomach and intestines, with a special opening. We have descriptions of some species in which the gizzard seems to be provided with a certain number of interior teeth forming a wonderful pavement—a living mill for the purpose of grinding the food before it enters into the second stomach. ”

“ But if thou beest diligent, thy harvest shall come as a fountain, and want shall fly from thee as an evil runagate.” [1] And again: “He that manageth his own land shall be filled with bread.” [2] And elsewhere he says: “The slothful has folded his own hands together, and has eaten his own flesh.” [3] And afterwards: “The sluggard hides his hand; he will not be able to bring it to his mouth.” [4] And again: “By slothfulness of the hands a floor will be brought low.” [5] Labour therefore continually; for the blot of the slothful is not to be healed. ”

“ My warm stove is quick to get ablaze;
At the cold mirror I am slow in doing my hair.
With melted snow I boil fragrant tea;
Seasoned with curds I cook a milk-pudding.
At my sloth and greed there is no one but me to laugh ”

“ Dyspeptic individuals bolted their food in wedges; feeding, not themselves, but broods of night-mares, who were continually standing at livery within them. Spare men, with lank and rigid cheeks, came out unsatisfied from the destruction of heavy dishes, and glared with watchful eyes upon the pastry. ”

“ Broad Cloth has, on the contrary, affected a sympathy with tatters, though with a constancy of purpose has refused an ell from its trailing superfluity to solace the wretchedness; the tears of Beef dropt on the lank abdomen of Starvation, are ancient as post diluvian crocodiles.—but it has spared no morsel to the object of its hypocritic sorrow. Now, however, even the decency of deceit is to be dropt, and Broad Cloth is to make sport with the nakedness of the land, and merry Beef is to roar like the bulls of Bashan at the agonies of famine! ”

“ If she is going farther afield—out to the Henri Quatre for luncheon, to the Reservoir for dinner—she wears an all-enveloping dust cloak to protect her delicate frock, a veil or perhaps a hood to cover her fragile hat and shield her face and hair from dust, but beneath this outer wrapping she is as exquisite, as elaborate as ever. ”

“ Pillowe, or Piloe, is a Dish very well known, made with Rice boil'd, with a good Hen, Mutton, and Spice, the Flesh and Fowl being put on the Rice in a Dish as Cusksoo, and so served up.
A Bustard, which they roast and stew, and make an excellent Dish of its Guts, I eat of it once; to me it seemed very pleasant and savoury, and very grateful to the Stomach. This Bird is fit for their King's Table, as likewise the Hedgehog, of which I will give an Account anon. Then they have Ragous, made with Sparrows, Pidgeons, &c. ”

“ One is occasionally tempted by the offer of a real old silver Chafing Dish with or without an ivory handle. Cooking in such an implement would be an ultra refinement of the art. But the temptation must be resisted, such things are not for daily use, although at one time and in some houses a silver dish no doubt was always put before the master, wherein to make his Welsh Rabbit. ”

“ Worms are sometimes voided, and glairy hairy Humours, resembling Pieces or Peelings of Guts, and sometimes Clots of Blood.
If the Distemper rises to a violent Height, the Guts become inflamed, which terminates either in Suppuration or in Mortification; the miserable Patient discharges Pus, or black and fœtid watery Stools: the Hiccup supervenes; he grows delirious; his Pulse sinks; and he falls into cold Sweats and Faintings which terminate in Death. ”

“ Next morning turn it into another dry cloth, and let it lye out of the mould upon a plain board, and change it as often as it wets the cloth, which must be three or four times a day: when it is so dry, that it wets the cloth no more, lay it upon a bed of green-rushes, and lay a row upon it; but be sure to pick the bents clean off, and lay them even all one way: if you cannot get good rushes, take nettles or grass. ”

“ The Stomach and Bowels are emptied either by Vomiting, or by Stools, the latter Discharge being much more natural than the first, which is not effected without a violent Motion, and one indeed to which Nature is repugnant. Nevertheless, there are some Cases, which really require this artificial Vomiting; but these excepted (some of which I have already pointed out) we should rather prefer those Remedies, which empty the Belly by Stool.
§ 548. The Signs, which indicate a Necessity for Purging, are, 1, a disagreeable Tast or Savour of the Mouth in a Morning, and especially a bitter Tast ”

“ This utensil is truly a disgrace to the manhood of the times; and its existence, by allowing people to dispense with warm cloaks and other anti-rain appliances, has caused more disease, in letting them catch cold, than any thing else we know of. ”

“ This warden allowed any, desiring, to take of the brown bread extra, but only one slice each. I would now, also, though very seldom, see dishes of cracked wheat setting on the beds as extra rations, or basins of hash-skins.—The reader understands that, in making hash, more or less will dry, or burn upon the sides of the kettle, leaving a thick skin when all the eatable part is removed.—This skin, scraped from the kettle, composed these hash-skins, perfectly dry as husks. ”

“ The dumplings had been mixed with the milk which had been left at breakfast.
Roger Gadsden said, I am an apprentice to Mr. Turner. I remember seeing the packet of arsenic in the drawer, and I missed it a day or two after the 7th of March. On Tuesday, the 21st of March, I went into the kitchen between three and four o’clock, and I observed a plate on the table, on which were a dumpling and a half. I had dined at two o’clock, but I took up a knife and fork, and was going to eat the dumpling, when the prisoner exclaimed, “Gadsden, do not eat that; it is cold and heavy; it will do you no good.” ”

“ In several cases of dropsy of the abdomen and lower extremities supervening upon scurvy, the patients affirmed that previously to the appearance of the dropsy they had suffered with profuse and obstinate diarrhea, and that when this was checked by a change of diet, from Indian corn bread baked with the husk, to boiled rice, the dropsy appeared. ”

“ In the fourth place, a Dish is so cheap, as not to come to above a Penny. If Tradesmen and Artizans were once aware of it, there are few who would not take the Advantage of so easy a Method of Breakfasting so agreeably, at so small a Charge, and to be well supported till Dinner-time, without taking any other Sustenance, Solid or Liquid. ”

“ Flocks is put in when the cloth is shrunken or fulled in the vats. The short pieces and dust, or flocks as it is called, are drawn in as the serrations open and the cloth is shrunken.
This is all useful to know, for it helps one in purchasing materials. Most of us cannot afford to buy cloth made of all new wool, but we should be able to tell whether cloth is made of cotton and wool mixed, or all wool. We will know by price whether the all wool is new wool or not. No shopkeeper should sell a cotton and wool for all wool. ”

“ These uncivilized children of the desert watch me drink broth from the ladle with most intense curiosity. In their own case, an attendant tears several of the sheets of bread into pieces and puts them in the broth; each person then helps himself to the broth-soaked bread with his fingers. What broth remains at the bottom of the bowl is drunk by them from the vessel itself in turns. ”

“ Sometimes a few ounces of pulverized charcoal will arrest the diarrhœa. Common diarrhœa may be distinguished from dysentery by a too abundant discharge of dung in too fluid a form, or in a full, almost liquid stream, sometimes very offensive to the smell, and now and then bloody. In dysentery, the dung is often mixed with mucus and blood, and is not unfrequently attended by a hard straining. The quantity of dung is less than in diarrhœa, but more offensive. ”

“ In America the lobster is a frequent victim of the Chafing Dish, and there are many and diverse ways of torturing his succulent flesh therein. I will give three recipes of a more simple nature, all of which have been tried and proven not guilty of indigestion. I should premise, however, that to my individual taste a lobster is only really good in two ways. First, plain boiled and eaten cold with a vinaigrette sauce; and, secondly, as a simple salad with lettuce and perchance a stray tomato. ”

“ Such meal, a good American farmer would not give to his swine unless for physic, and when the half-starved poor, who had been kept all their life on potatoes, took this sour, mouldy, harsh food, dysentery must be the result. ”

“ The desire for food is destroyed, and the child will take neither aliment nor medicine. The stools are changed from their natural appearances, being sometimes black, and smelling like putrid mud; and at other times they are curdled, with shreds of coagulable lymph floating in a dark green fluid. ”

“ The pulp then consists of two things—a white milk-like liquid; that is the rich and nourishing part of the food, ground and soaked down to the utmost fineness, and mingled with some of the water which has been drunk. And a coarse solid substance, still undigested; that is the [204] waste part of the food which has resisted the dissolving power of the stomach, and is on its way to be rejected as good for nothing. The white milk-like essence of the food gets sucked up, by a quantity of little holes or mouths that lie all over the lining of the bowel, as the pulp moves down this canal. ”

“ To fill up the measure of disgust, everything—meat, soup, vegetables, fricassees—must be eaten with a pewter spoon, without knife or fork, and had we not brought napkins along with us, some fragment of which still remain, the sleeves of our coats must have served for that purpose. ”

“ When it is enough, for they love every thing tho [Pg 384] roughly done, they put this Cusksoo out into the Dish they serve it up in, which is somewhat like D. and the Cusksoo being heaped up, they make (as it were) a Bed or Place for the Meat to lie in, then they put good store of Spice, as Ginger, Pepper, Saffron, &c. This Dish is set upon a Mat on the Ground, and four Men may easily sit about it, tho' I have seen six and more at one Dish; they sit with their Buttocks upon the Calves of their Legs, with the bottom of their Feet on the Ground. ”