Pot (container)

“ In the evening I brought a good supply of clay into the house, and using the chest as a work-bench, busied myself until bedtime with moulding several vessels of different shapes and sizes for use in cooking and about the house. I fashioned a rude pot capable of holding about five gallons; a smaller one to hold a gallon or thereabouts; a water-jar with two handles by which it might be swung with a cord from the ridgepole,{45} to contain drinking-water ”

“ They are tall enough to insure plenty of water over the top of the cans and will accommodate four or five two quart and five or six one quart cans and seven pints, though some recommend placing two tiers of pints in the container, but I have always thought that rather risky. The lard-cans are very light to handle and the lids fit closely, retaining the steam. Whenever there is an imperfect closing of the lid it will be well to place a towel over the top of the can before adjusting the lid to insure the retention of the steam. ”

“ Many hands make light work, and madame of the grande famille of sixteen or eighteen children accomplishes her wash of seventy-five to a hundred pieces with signal ease and entirely without complaint through the pot’s assistance—the pot that hangs under the blue skies above the glowing coals—the out-of-door pot that magnetizes the willing hands of normal children.
Dye-pots, wash-pots, soap-pots are essentially and quite naturally enough presided over by women. ”

“ Pack the product into the containers, leaving about a quarter of an inch of space at the top.
8. With vegetables add one level teaspoonful of salt to each quart container and fill with boiling water. With fruits use syrups.
9. With glass jars always use a good rubber. Test the rubber by stretching or turning inside out. Fit on the rubber and put the lid in place. If the container has a screw top do not screw up as hard as possible, but use only the thumb and little finger in tightening it. This makes it possible for the steam to escape and prevents breakage. ”

“ A boiling water bath canner is needed for processing high-acid foods, such as fruits, tomatoes, tomato and fruit juice, and pickles.
Water bath canners in several sizes are available on the market. The container must be deep enough for a rack 315 to hold the jars off the bottom of the canner. The depth allows water to be over the jars of food by at least 1 to 2 inches. Keep 1 to 2 inches of space above the water to allow for boiling; this prevents water from boiling over.
The canner must have a tight-fitting lid. ”

“ Metal can, glass container and plastic container manufacturers were each seeking to enlarge their sales to the thousands of packers of hundreds of varieties of food, chemical, toiletry and industrial products, ranging from ripe olives to fruit juices to tuna fish to smoked tongue ”

“ The filter is formed of three large earthen pots, which are placed upon a stand one above the other. The pot at the top contains sand, the second charcoal, and the lowest is the receptacle for the filtered water after it has percolated through the sand and charcoal. The two upper chatties are pierced with holes to allow the water to drip through into the lowest. But the best plans devised by European skill and science are often upset by the natives, who dislike the trouble involved in carrying them out. ”

“ Most raw fruits and vegetables should be packed tightly into the container because they shrink during processing; a few—like corn, lima beans, and peas—should be packed loosely because they expand.
Hot food should be packed fairly loosely. It should be at or near boiling temperature when it is packed.
There should be enough sirup, water, or juice to fill in around the solid food in the container and to cover the food. Food at the top of the container tends to darken if not covered with liquid. It takes from 1⁄2 to 11⁄2 cups of liquid for a quart glass jar or a No. 21⁄2 tin can. ”

“ More trouble, in potted bulbs and all kinds of plants, comes from too little drainage space than from any other one thing. Most boys and girls think it enough if one little stone or piece of pot is put in the hole of the flower pot. Not so; there should be from one to two inches of drainage material in the pot. That seems a great deal, doesn't it? But it will give not only drainage but air space, too, and this keeps the plant in good healthy shape. With too little drainage area the earth in a pot gets clogged and very often sour. A high pot needs more drainage matter in it than a low one. ”

“ The use of about a gallon of a mixture of equal proportions of lime-water, chamber-ley, and soap-suds, with as much soot as will give it the colour and consistence of dunghill drainings, to each bush in the rows, applied by means of the rose of a watering-pot, immediately as the ground between them is dug over, and left as rough as possible, the whole being gone over in this way without treading or poaching the land, has also been found highly successful by others. ”

“ Some even carry their daikçhees, or metal boilers; though, in general, they purchase for a farthing, or, at the utmost, for a halfpenny, a new earthen pot, capable of holding perhaps three quarts, or a gallon, with a lid of the same, in which, if they do not intend to employ the people of the seray, they dress their own victuals ”

“ Pots and Kettles.--Cooking apparatus of any degree of complexity, and of very portable shapes, can be bought at all military outfitters'; but for the bush, and travelling roughly, nothing is better than a light roomy iron pot and a large strong tin kettle. It is disagreeable to make tea in the same pot that meat is boiled in; besides, if you have only one vessel, it takes a longer time to prepare meals. If possible, take a second small tin kettle, both as a reserve against accidents and for the convenience of the thing. ”

“ A few years ago all sugar went out in barrels or bags, while today a modern refinery turns out about twenty different styles of container, and twenty-four kinds of sugar. It is obvious, therefore, that the packing room of a refinery is an interesting place, covering as it does a large area and including a great amount of special, intricate machinery for filling, weighing and sewing or sealing packages. ”

“ The container for a sanitary privy may be small—for example, a galvanized-iron pail or garbage can, to be removed from time to time by hand; it may be large, as a barrel or a metal tank mounted for moving; or it may be a stationary underground metal tank or masonry vault. The essential requirement in the receptacle is permanent water-tightness to prevent pollution of soils and wells. Wooden pails or boxes, which warp and leak, should not be used. Where a vault is used it should be shallow to facilitate emptying and cleaning. ”

“ Let a middle-sized pot be prepared by filling it within three inches of the margin with small broken potsherds, or some such matter, that there may be a constant and ready drain for the water, which it will be necessary to give the cuttings at any time when the earth appears dry. ”

“ No piece is too small for the stock pot. Everything makes up. A very good motto for this pot is, “What don’t poison, fattens; and what don’t fatten, helps to fill up.” All bones should be crushed and broken into convenient lengths, as there is gelatine in them, and they add to the strength and colour of the stock. The lid should always be kept on the stock pot; if not, some of the goodness will fly up the chimney in the steam. In a cold climate, where it is possible the soup is the better for being made the day before it is required, the fat can be removed in a solid cake. ”

“ A tin pot with a very long handle serves to ladle out the filtered liquid, and the rim of this vessel is fringed with sharp projections like a chevaux de frise, as a caution to the thirsty not to apply their lips to the ladle! ”

“ The whole is done with clay, sand, water, a board on which the clay is mixed, a wooden beater, a stone, and a shell; no wheel is employed, but the pot is supported in an old broken pot and can thus be easily turned round. The women are very dexterous in using their hands and fingers, and they can make several pots in a day. The people have not much to trade with, and we did not see any decorated bamboo tobacco pipes. ”

“ Glass containers are rigid, breakable, and chemically inert. They can be hermetically sealed and, unlike many cans, can be easily resealed after they have been opened. The industry recognizes two basic types of containers, the wide mouth and the narrow neck. ”

“ Two men carry on their shoulders a pot riddled with holes, suspended from a pole made of Diospyros Embryopteris wood, from inside the room into the street, as soon as the lamp is covered by the cooking-pot. Both doors of the room are then closed, and not opened till the return of the men. The pot which they carry is believed to increase in weight as they bear it to a tank, into which it is thrown. ”

“ In this crag, or parts of it, now far beyond the reach of the water, it has worn what are called pot-holes,—being circular hollows in the rock, where for ages stones have been whirled round and round by the eddies of the water; so that the interior of the pot is as circular and as smooth as it could have been made by art. Often the mouth of the pot is the narrowest part, the inner space being deeply scooped out. Water is contained in most of these pot-holes, sometimes so deep that a man might drown himself therein, and lie undetected at the bottom. ”

“ Eloise and Josephine will start to put the drainage material into the pots. Ethel and Dee may do the same for the window box. Put in your curved pieces of pot over the drainage hole, then about an inch of drainage material. There is a wooden mallet. Crack up some bits of old flower pot as you need them. Outside is a half barrel of old pots. Instead of using all pot for this half inch of drainage material, use some charcoal. In that barrel marked charcoal you will find plenty of pieces. The charcoal is not only good for drainage but helps keep the soil sweet. ”

“ The main supply you will pack in some sort of waterproof receptacle. I read a story recently in which a man was recognized as a true woodsman because he carried his matches in a bottle. He must have had good luck. The cardinal principle of packing is never to carry any glassware. Ninety and nine days it may pass safely, but the hundredth will smash it as sure as some people's shooting. And then you have jam, or chili powder, or syrup, or whiskey, all over the place—or else no matches. Any good screw top can—or better still, two telescoping tubes—is infinitely better. ”

“ The juice, as it runs off, passes through a fine hair sieve into a cylindrical glass jug or jar, where it is allowed to remain for two hours, when the clear supernatant liquor is poured off, and the thick portion containing the sediment is poured on a paper filter, supported on linen, and allowed to drain, after which it is dried by a gentle heat in a stove. The product has a green colour, and constitutes the finest elaterium of commerce. A darker and inferior article is obtained from the liquor, poured from the first sediment by placing it in shallow pans, and allowing it again to deposit. ”

“ Also the pots can be protected from many of the untoward experiences that are likely to befall the crops in the open field. The conditions are somewhat more artificial, as the root systems are confined and the drainage is not natural, but on the whole the results of pot experiments are very closely allied to those obtained in the field by similar tests. ”

“ Water is poured on, and the mass is left to stand in the sun for several days. The oil rises to the top, is skimmed off, and boiled in large copper boilers. It is then put in earthen pots of about forty-five pounds' weight. Each pot is worth, on the beach, one dollar and thirty cents; and at Pará, from two and a half to three dollars. The beaches of the Amazon and its tributaries yield from five to six thousand pots annually. It is used for the same purposes as lard with us.
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CHAPTER XIV. HERNDON'S EXPEDITION CONCLUDED.
On Jan. ”

“ When the pot is filled, two men take the rope by the end, and run down a declivity, which is cut in the ground to a distance equivalent to the depth of the well: thus, when they reach the end of the track the pot is raised to its proper elevation; the contents, water and oil together, are then discharged into a cistern, and the water is afterwards drawn off through a hole in the bottom. ”

“ The channel is then closed with a dab of clay, and a fresh lot of earth washed, and the liquor run off as before; and so on till the pit is nearly full of brine. This is allowed to stand till the liquor clears. It is then ladled out into earthen jars, set on the fire and boiled to evaporation successively, till the jar is filled with a cake of granular salt. The jars are then broken, and the mass of salt (which retains its shape) is ready for conveyance to market.
“Large quantities of this salt are used by the nomad population, and a good deal is taken to Kandahar. ”

“ So dig into your storerooms, attics and basements and bring forth all your old jars. If a top is in good condition and will make a perfect seal when adjusted with a good rubber you can use that jar.
If the tops cannot be restored to good condition it is poor economy to use them. Imperfectly sealed jars are probably responsible for more spoiled canned goods than any other cause. Good tops and good rubbers are requisites for good canning.
For your canner, or sterilizer, you may use a wash boiler or a galvanized bucket, such as is used for a garbage pail—a new one, of course. ”