Chapter V: Part 5

Pickles should be kept in kegs or unglazed earthen jars. Sweetmeats keep best in glass jars, unglazed earthen jars do very well. If the jar is covered with a paper wet in spirits, the sweet meats are less liable to ferment. Both pickles and sweet meats, should be looked to occasionally to see that they are not fermenting, if so, the vinegar or syrup should be turned from them and scalded. If pickles grow soft, it is owing to the vinegar's not being strong enough; to make it stronger, scald it and put in a paper wet with molasses, and a little alum.

47. _Starch._

To make good flour starch, mix the flour with a little water till free from lumps, thin it gradually with more water, then stir it slowly into boiling water. Let it boil five or six minutes stirring it frequently, a tallow candle stirred round in it several times makes it smoother. Strain it through a thick bag. Starch made in this manner will be free from lumps, and answers for cotton and linen as well as Poland starch. Many people like it for muslins. Poland starch is made in the same manner as flour starch. When rice is boiled in a pot without a bag, the water that it is boiled in is as good as Poland starch for clearing muslins, if boiled by itself a few moments and strained. Muslins to look very clear, should be starched and clapped while the starch is hot.

48. _To temper New Ovens and Iron Ware._

New ovens before being used, to retain their heat well, should be heated half a day. The lid should be put up as soon as the wood is taken out. It should not be used to bake in the first time it is heated. Iron utensils are less liable to crack if heated gradually before they are used. New flat irons should be heated half a day, to retain their heat well.

49. _To temper Earthen Ware._

Earthen ware that is used to cook in, is less liable to crack from the heat, by being put before they are used into cold water and heated gradually till the water boils, then taken from the fire and left in the water until cold.

50. _Preservatives against the Ravages of Moths._

To prevent woolen and fur articles of dress, from getting moth eaten when you have done wearing them, put them in a chest with cedar chips, camphor gum or tobacco leaves.

51. _To drive away various kinds of Household Vermin._

A little quicksilver and white of an egg beat together and put in the crevices of bedsteads, with a feather, is the most effectual bed bug poison. A solution of vitriol is also a good thing rubbed on walls that are infested by them. Hellebore with molasses rubbed on it, is an excellent thing to kill cockroaches, and put round the places that they are in the habit of frequenting. Arsenic spread on bread and butter, and placed round in rat holes, will put a stop to their ravages very speedily. Great care is necessary in using all these poisons where there are children, as they are equally as fatal to human beings as vermin. The flower of sulphur sprinkled round places that ants frequent, will drive them away. Half a tea spoonful of black pepper, one of sugar and a table spoonful of cream mixed and kept on a plate, in a room where flies are troublesome will soon cause them to disappear. Weak brine will kill worms in gravel walks. They should be kept moist with it a week, in the spring, and three or four days in the fall.

52. _To keep Meat in hot Weather._

Cover it with bran, and keep it where there is a free circulation of air, away from the flies. A wire safe is an excellent thing to preserve meat from spoiling.

53. _To Prevent polished Cutlery from rusting._

Knives, snuffers and other steel articles, are apt to rust when not cleaned frequently. To prevent it wrap them tight in coarse brown paper, when not in use. Knives and forks should be perfectly free from spots and well polished when not in use. They should also be wrapped up, each one by itself, so as to exclude the air.

54. _To melt Fat for Shortening._

The fat of all kinds of meat, excepting mutton and hams, makes good shortening. Roast meat drippings and the liquor that meat is boiled in, should stand until cold to have the fat harden so that it can be taken off easily. Cut your scraps of fat into small pieces, and melt them slowly without burning, together with the fat from your drippings. When melted, strain it and let it remain until nearly cold, then pour in a little cold water. When the fat forms into a hard cake, take it up and scrape off the sediment that adheres to the under side, melt it again and when lukewarm sprinkle in a little salt. The dregs of fat are good for soap grease. This shortening answers all the various purposes of lard very well, excepting in the warmest weather. In using it for pies it is necessary to use considerable butter with it. The fat of meat should not be suffered to lie more than a week in winter without melting, and in summer not more than two or three days. Mutton fat and the fat of beef, if melted into hard cakes, will fetch a good price at the tallow chandler's. It is much more economical for housekeepers to put down their own pork, than to buy it already salted. The leaves and thin pieces that are not good for salting, should be cut into small bits and melted, then strained through a cullender with a cloth laid in it, as soon as it begins to thicken sprinkle in a tea cup of salt, to twenty or thirty weight of the lard; stir it in well, then set it away in a cool place. Some people have an idea that pork scraps must be fried till very brown in order to be preserved good the year round, but it is not necessary if salt is put in.

55. _To preserve Eggs fresh a Year._

Mix a handful of unslacked lime with the same quantity of salt, two or three gallons of water. If eggs that are perfectly fresh are put in this mixture, they will keep good a year in it, provided none are cracked.

56. _To preserve Cream for long Voyages._

Take cream that is fresh and rich, and mix it with half its weight of powdered white sugar, stir the whole well together, and preserve it in bottles corked very tight. In this state it is ready to mix with tea and coffee.

57. _Substitute for Milk and Cream in Tea or Coffee._

Beat the white of a fresh egg in a bowl, and turn on to it gradually boiling tea or coffee. It is difficult to distinguish the taste from rich cream.

58. _To Cure Butter._

Take two parts of the best common salt, one part of sugar and one of saltpetre, blend the whole well together. Mix one ounce of this composition well with every sixteen ounces of the butter. Close it up tight in kegs, cover it with an oiled paper, and let it remain untouched for a month. Butter cured in this manner is very nice, and will keep good eight or nine months, if not exposed to the air.

59. _To make salt Butter Fresh._

Put four pounds of salt butter into a churn, with four quarts of new milk and a small portion of annatto. Churn them together, take out the butter in the course of an hour, and treat it like fresh butter, working in the usual quantity of salt; a little white sugar improves it. This is said to be equal to fresh butter in every respect. The salt may be got out of a small quantity at a time, by working it over in fresh water, changing the water several times.

60. _To take Rankness from a small quantity of Butter._

Take a quantity that is to be made use of, put it into a bowl filled with boiling water with a little saleratus in it, let it remain until cold, then take it off carefully and work it over with a little salt. By this method it is separated from the grosser particles.

61. _Windsor Soap._

To make this celebrated soap for shaving and washing the hands, nothing more is necessary than to slice the best white soap as thin as possible and melt it over a slow fire. When melted take it up, when lukewarm scent it with the oil of caraway or any other oil that is more agreeable, then turn it into moulds and let it remain in a dry situation several days. It will then be fit for use.

62. _To make Bayberry or Myrtle Soap._

To a pound of bayberry tallow, put a pint of potash lye, strong enough to bear up an egg. Boil them together till it becomes soap. Then put in half a tea cup of cold water, let it boil several minutes longer. Take it off, and when partly cooled put in a few drops of the essence of wintergreen, pour it into moulds and let it remain several days. This soap is good for shaving, and is an excellent thing for chapped hands and eruptions on the face.

63. _Cold Soap._

To twenty pounds of white potash put ten of grease, previously melted and strained. Mix it well together with a pailful of cold water, let it remain several days, then stir in several more pailsful of cold water. Continue to pour in cold water at intervals of two or three days, stirring it up well each time. As soon as the water begins to thin it, it is time to leave off adding it. This method of making soap is much easier than any other, while it is equally cheap and good. If you have not land to enrich with your ashes they can be disposed of to advantage at the soap boiler's.

THE END.

Transcriber's Note

The following typographical errors were corrected:

Page Error
vii 67 changed to 97
ix Apple Dumplings changed to Apple Dumplings,
x woolen Shawls changed to woolen Shawls,
3 petre changed to petre,
4 and alspice changed to and allspice
4 when severl slices changed to when several slices
4 mix a tea spoonfull changed to mix a tea spoonful
11 pigs ear's changed to pig's ears
15 fow s changed to fowls
15 Cold Veal changed to Cold Veal.
21 rice, and a a lb. changed to rice, and a lb.
25 twenty minutes, changed to twenty minutes.
61 whites of threee ggs, changed to whites of three eggs,
63 to your tase. changed to to your taste.
71 sugar, half a tea spoonsful changed to sugar, half a tea spoonful
71 nutmeg, and a table spoonsful changed to nutmeg, and a table
spoonful
74 by the spoonsful changed to by the spoonful
89 be fit to to changed to be fit to
108 without any soap, changed to without any soap.

The following words were inconsistently spelled.

bake pan / bakepan
pen-knife / penknife
pie crust / piecrust
saleratus / sal eratus
whortle berries / whortleberries

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