Part 21

If you are not an epicure already, you will be in danger of becoming one, if you eat much of this corn cake—_provided it is well made_.

SUGAR GINGER-BREAD.—To three-quarters of a pound of butter and not quite a pint of finely rolled brown sugar, add a great spoonful of ginger, and a little cinnamon and nutmeg; beat these up to a foam; beat four eggs thoroughly and add and mix well, with the butter and sugar. Add a teacup of rich cream, a great spoonful of saleratus dissolved in hot water. Stir in sifted flour as long as it can be worked. Pound and knead the dough very thoroughly. Roll out quite thin, cut into small cakes, bake in a quick oven. They will be hard, but tender and crisp.

HOOSIER BISCUIT.—Add a teaspoonful of salt to a pint of new milk, warm from the cow. Stir in flour until it becomes a stiff batter; add two great spoonfuls of lively brewer’s yeast; put it in a warm place and let it rise just as much as it will. When well raised, stir in a teaspoonful of saleratus dissolved in hot water. Beat up three eggs (two will answer), stir with the batter, and add flour until it becomes tolerable stiff dough; knead it thoroughly, set it by the fire until it begins to rise, then roll out, cut to biscuit form, put in pans, cover it over with a thick cloth, set by the fire until it rises again, then bake in a quick oven. If well made, no directions will be needed for eating.

As all families are not provided with scales and weights, referring to the ingredients generally used in cakes and pastry, we subjoin a list of weights and measures.

WEIGHT AND MEASURE.

Wheat flour one pound is one quart. Indian meal one pound two ounces, is one quart. Butter, when soft one pound one ounce, is one quart. Loaf-sugar, broken, one pound is one quart. White sugar, powdered, one pound one ounce, is one quart. Best brown sugar one pound two ounces, is one quart. Eggs ten eggs are one pound.

LIQUID MEASURE.

Sixteen large tablespoonfuls are half a pint Eight large tablespoonfuls are one gill. Four large tablespoonfuls are half a gill. A common sized tumber holds half a pint. A common sized wine glass holds half a gill.

Allowing for accidental differences in the quality, freshness, dryness, and moisture of the articles, we believe this comparison between weight and measure to be as nearly correct as possible.

COOKING VEGETABLES.

While we believe meat to be necessary to laboring men, we are equally sure that it is used to excess; for persons of a sedentary habit, vegetable diet is supposed to be much more wholesome, because much less stimulating than meat. Whatever shall make vegetables more relishful will extend their popular use, and therefore any _simple_ recipe for cooking them is a public good. The following are taken fresh from the kitchen, and we will vouch for their being good, although there may be other ways still better.

1. GREENS.—The articles employed for greens are numerous; we merely mention the following:—sprouts of turnip and cabbage, dandelions, lamb’s quarters, red-rooted plantain, cowslip, wild pepper-grass, purslain, young beet-tops, lettuce, and spinage—the best of all greens.

In gathering plantain, care must be taken to select _only_ the red-rooted, the white being thought poisonous. With the exception of spinage, all these should be boiled in salted water, or in water with a piece of salt pork, for half an hour, then taken out, drained, and served up with butter gravy.

Spinage is boiled, as above, for half an hour, then taken out, thoroughly drained, put into a skillet with cream, butter and pepper, and if need be, a little more salt. Place it over the fire and stir it up with a knife all the time it simmers, until it becomes a paste. About five minutes are enough for this last process—then dish and serve it.

2. ASPARAGUS.—Asparagus should never be cut _below the surface of the ground_, although books and papers, almost universally, direct to the contrary. The white part of the stem is always tough and inedible. Let it spring up about six or eight inches and then cut it _at_ the surface of the ground. Lay it in the pan or kettle in which it is to be cooked, and sprinkle salt over it. Pour boiling water over it, until it is just covered; boil from fifteen to twenty-five minutes, according to the age of the asparagus. Have two or three nicely toasted slices of bread in the dish which is to go to the table; lay the asparagus upon the toast, putting first sweet butter and pepper upon it according to your taste; lastly pour over it the liquor in which it was boiled. Many throw away the water in which it was cooked and substitute cream and butter, but thereby the finest flavor of the vegetable is thrown away and lost.

3. BEETS.—While young, beets may be boiled tops and all; as the tops get tough the root alone is boiled in salted water until tender, viz. from three-quarters of an hour to an hour and a half; according to the size of the beet. Quarter or slice them if large, and add fresh sweet butter and pepper.

4. PEAS.—No vegetable depends more for its excellence upon good cooking than peas. Have them freshly gathered and shelled, _but never wash them_. If they are not perfectly clean, roll them in a dry cloth; but even this is seldom required, and then only through carelessness. Pour them dry into the cooking dish, and put as much salt over them as is required, then pour on boiling water enough to cover them; boil them fifteen minutes if they are young; no pea is fit to cook which requires more than half an hour’s boiling. When done, put to a quart of peas three great tablespoonfuls of butter, and pepper to your taste. Put all the water to them in which they were boiled. The great mistakes in cooking peas are in cooking too long, and in deluging them with water.

STRING or SNAP beans are cooked like peas, only they require longer boiling.

5. CORN should be boiled in salted water from twenty to thirty minutes, according to its age; if boiled longer it becomes hard and loses its flavor. We have given in the _Western Farmer and Gardener_, p. 231, a recipe for corn and beans, but as all may not see that periodical, we extract the substance of it.

We give directions for a mess sufficient for a family of six or seven.

To about half a pound of salt pork put three quarts of cold water; let it boil. Now cut off three quarts of green corn from the cobs, set the corn aside and put _the cobs_ to boil with the pork, as they will add much to the richness of the mixture. When the pork has boiled, say half an hour, remove the cobs and put in one quart of freshly-gathered, green, shelled beans; boil again for fifteen minutes; then add the three quarts of corn and let it boil another fifteen minutes. Now turn the whole out into a dish, add five or six large spoonfuls of butter, season it with pepper to your taste, and with salt also, if the salt of the pork has not proved sufficient. If the liquor has boiled away, it will be necessary to add a little more to it before taking it away from the fire, as this is an essential part of the affair.

6. SALSIFY OR OYSTER-PLANT.—This vegetable is raised exactly as are carrots and parsnips. Like the latter—they require a little frosting before their flavor is fully developed.

They should be scraped and washed (but _not_ soaked in vinegar, as English cooks direct, to extract a bitter taste, which they do _not_ contain), and sliced; sprinkle enough salt upon them to season them, pour on just enough boiling water to cover them; boil till perfectly tender, which will be, say fifteen minutes. Put butter and pepper to them; stir up a little flour in cream to make a thin paste and pour in enough to thicken a little the water in which they were boiled. Dish with or without toasted bread, as may suit the taste.

7. TOMATOES.—The recipe which we gave in the _Farmer and Gardener_ has been universally copied, and, we believe, has beguiled thousands to the love of tomatoes. It has been introduced to cook-books under the name of “Indiana Recipe for Cooking Tomatoes.”

8. ONIONS should be boiled for half an hour in salted water, then drained, put into sweet milk, boiled again for five or ten minutes, seasoned with butter, pepper and salt, and served up.

9. PIE-PLANT.—This important vegetable—among the earliest, the most wholesome, and of the easiest culture—should be found in every garden, and served up on every table during the spring and early summer. To prepare it for use, strip off the skin, slice it thin, put into a dish with a few spoonfuls of boiling water, just enough to keep from sticking, for its own juice will afford liquid enough after it is cooked. Boil until it is perfectly tender, stirring it constantly. If the plant is good and the fire quick, it ought to be boiled in five minutes. Stir in all the sugar needed while it is in a scalding state. A little nutmeg or lemon peel, put in while it is hot, improves the flavor. When cool, it may be used for tarts, or pies, with or without upper crust; it also makes a better _apple_-sauce than apples do themselves.

10. EGG-PLANT.—Boil in salted water a few minutes; cut slices, put a little salt between each slice, and let them lie for half an hour. Then fry them in butter or lard until they are brown.

11. CAULIFLOWER AND BROCCOLI.—The only difference between these, so far as the cook is concerned, is in color. Take off the outside leaves and soak them for an hour in salted water. Pour boiling water to them and boil for about twenty minutes. Serve them up with butter and pepper. The Savoy cabbages are next in delicacy of flavor to the cauliflower, and may be cooked in the same way.

FARMERS, TAKE A HINT.

It is very surprising to see how slow men are to take a hint. The frost destroys about half the bloom on the fruit-trees; everybody prognosticates the loss of fruit; instead of that, the _half_ that remains is larger, fairer, and higher flavored than usual; and the trees instead of being exhausted, are ready for another crop the next year. Why don’t the owner _take the hint_ and thin out his fruit every bearing year? But no; the next season sees his orchard overloaded, fruit small, and not well formed; yet he always _boasts_ of that first-mentioned crop without profiting by the lesson it teaches.

We heard a man saying, “the best crop of celery I ever saw, was raised by old John ——, on a spot of ground where the wash from the barn-yard ran into it after every hard shower.” Did he take the hint, and convey such liquid manure in trenches to his garden? Not at all; he bragged about that wonderful crop of celery, but would not take the hint.

We knew a case where a farmer subsoiled a field and raised crops in consequence which were the admiration of the neighborhood; and for years the field showed the advantage of deep handling. But we could not learn that a single farmer in the neighborhood took the hint. The man who acted thus wisely, sold his farm and his successor pursued the old way of surface-scratching.

A stanch farmer complained to us of his soil as too loose and light; we mentioned ashes as worth trying; “well, now you mention it, I believe it will do good. I bought a part of my farm from a man who was a wonderful fellow to save up ashes, and around his cabin it lay in heaps. I took away the house and ordered the ashes to be scattered, and to this day I notice that when the plow runs along through that spot, the ground turns up moist and close-grained.” It is strange that he never took the hint! There are thousands of bushels of ashes lying not far from his farm about an old soap and candle factory with which he might have dressed his whole farm.

A farmer gets a splendid crop of corn or grain from off a grass or clover lay. Does he take the hint? Does he adopt the system which shall allow him every year just such a sward to put his grain on? No, he hates book-farming, and scientific farming, and “this notion of rotation;” and jogs on the old way.

A few years ago our farmers got roundly into debt; and they have worried and sweat under it, till some of them have grown greyer, and added not a few wrinkles to their face. Do they take the hint? Are they not pitching into debt again?

A few years ago _mules_ commanded a high price; everybody raised mules forthwith; the market of course was glutted; the price fell; everybody quit the business; markets became empty and the price rose; a few men who had stuck to the business pushed in their droves and made money; and now everybody is raising mules again. The same game is played every four or five years with pork; men make when pork is scarce, but few farmers have stock on hand. They instantly rush into the business, flood the country with hogs and get almost nothing for them. Why don’t men take the hint? _A moderate stock all the time_, makes more money than that system which has none when the price is high and too many when the price is low.

Because one year, the wheat crop has been very large and fine, and the price low, not half so much will be put in another year. Those who are wise, foreseeing this fact and sowing largely, will, if the season favors wheat, reap a handsome profit.

Auctioneers tell us that a “wink is as good as a word.” We give both, and hope our readers will _take the hint_.

MIXING PAINT, AND LAYING IT ON.

It is convenient, and oftentimes, on the score of economy, necessary for persons (who have not been apprenticed to the trade), to do their own painting. To enable such to practise with success, we propose giving a few hints.

RESPECTING THE ARTICLES USED.

WHITE LEAD.—This is extensively manufactured in all of our principal cities. Low priced leads are always adulterated by _chalk_, or, as it is called in its prepared state, _whiting_. It is sometimes so largely mixed with this, as to be worthless, and every one has observed houses, painted for a year or so, from which the paint rubs off like whitewash, in consequence of the use of adulterated lead. The poorest lead is sold _without any brand_. The common article is branded as No. 1, with the maker’s name. The best article is branded with the maker’s name, as PURE, or SUPERIOR. It is the best economy always to use the pure lead.

OIL.—Linseed oil is that usually employed in painting. It contains a large amount of fatty substance and of other impurity, which should be separated from it before it is used. _This is to be done by boiling._ For outside work, the oil should _always be boiled_, no matter what the painter says about it. Great care should be taken in doing this. Let the kettle be set out of doors, the heat be increased gradually, but never enough to produce violent boiling, as the oil will expand, run over, and take fire, when nothing can save it, or the house either, oftentimes, if you have been foolish enough to do it within doors. As fast as impurities rise to the surface, skim them off—when the oil has a clear look, slack off the fire and let the oil cool; carefully turn off the clear portion, leaving the _sediment_ undisturbed.

DRYERS.—Substances used to make paint dry quickly are called _Dryers_. For light work sugar of lead is the best; for colored paint, litharge and red lead are employed. Spirits of turpentine is used for the same purpose. Litharge and red lead are usually boiled in with the oil at the rate of about a quarter of a pound of litharge to a gallon of oil.

MIXING AND LAYING ON.—Paint is purchased in kegs, containing twenty-five pounds of lead ground in oil, and ready for mixing. The kegs themselves make excellent paint-pots. The lead is to be mixed according to the work to be done. If paint is laid on in heavy coats it will crack and peel off. If several thin coats are successively laid on, it forms a solid body. The first coat is called _priming_. The lead is made quite thin with oil for priming. Before laying it on, let the work be cleaned, all dust and dirt be removed. The surface is then covered evenly with paint, and allowed to dry thoroughly.

SECOND COAT.—Let nail-holes, cracks, etc., be filled with putty; for colored painting, red-lead putty is the best. The paint should be mixed to the thickness of thin cream, and laid on _evenly_, but not in too great quantities. In nice work, after this coat has thoroughly dried, it should be rubbed down with pumice-stone or fine sand-paper. The third coat is to be laid on as was the second. Three coats, at least, are required for good painting. Four or five will be still better.

Paint mixed with boiled oil usually has a glossy appearance. If it is desired to increase this, small portions of varnish are added. This is usually confined to outside work.

In cities the glossy surface of paint, is dis-esteemed for inside work; and instead, a _flatted_ white is laid on. This is produced by mixing the lead for the last coat with turpentine instead of oil, by which a dull white is made. Flatted colors are not susceptible of being cleaned by washing more that once or twice, whereas common paint will endure washing, if carefully performed, for years. If painting is _well done_, and the paint is of the best materials, it ought to last twenty years. But the trash too often daubed upon buildings, does not last five years.

White will keep its color best for outside work. Some tint is thought to be more agreeable for inside work. Much judgment is required in preparing colored or tinted paints; and verbal directions cannot well be given for it in any moderate space. The usual pigments employed in making up the tints most in fashion, are for _grey_—white lead, Prussian blue, ivory black, and lake, or Venetian red; for _pea_ and _sea greens_—white, Prussian blue, and yellow; for _olive green_—white, Prussian blue, umber, and yellow ochre; for _fawn color_—burned terra sienna, umber, and white.

We add two recipes taken from an English work, for a cheap paint for inside walls.

“MILK PAINT.—A paint has been used on the Continent with success, made from _milk_ and _lime_, that dries quicker than oil paint, and has no smell. It is made in the following manner: Take fresh curds and bruise the lumps on a grinding-stone, or in an earthen pan, or mortar, with a spatula or strong spoon. Then put them into a pot with an equal quantity of lime, well slacked with water, to make it just thick enough to be kneaded. Stir this mixture without adding more water, and a white-colored fluid will soon be obtained, which will serve as a paint. It may be laid on with a brush with as much ease us varnish, and it dries very speedily. It must, however, be used the same day it is made, for if kept till next day it will be too thick: consequently no more must be mixed up at one time than can be laid on in a day. If any color be required, any of the ochres, as yellow ochre, or red ochre, or umber, may be mixed with it in any proportion. Prussian blue would be changed by the lime. Two coats of this paint will be sufficient, and when quite dry it may be polished with a piece of woollen cloth, or similar substance, and it will become as bright as varnish. It will only do for inside work; but it will last longer if varnished over with white of egg after it has been polished.”

“_The following recipe for milk paint_ is given in ‘Smith’s Art of House Painting:’ Take of skimmed milk nearly two quarts; of fresh-slaked lime about six ounces and a half; of linseed oil four ounces, and of whiting three pounds; put the lime into a stone vessel, and pour upon it a sufficient quantity of milk to form a mixture resembling thin cream; then add the oil, a little at a time, stirring it with a small spatula; the remaining milk is then to be added, and lastly the whiting. The milk must on no account be sour. Slake the lime by dipping the pieces in water, out of which it is to be immediately taken, and left to slake in the air. For fine white paint the oil of caraway is best, because colorless; but with ochres the commonest oils may be used. The oil when mixed with the milk and lime entirely disappears, and is totally dissolved by the lime, forming a calcareous soap. The whiting or ochre is to be gently crumbled on the surface of the fluid, which it gradually imbibes, and at last sinks: at this period it must be well stirred in. This paint may be colored like distemper or size-color, with levigated charcoal, yellow ochre, etc., and used in the same manner. The quantity here prescribed is sufficient to cover twenty-seven square yards with the first coat, and it will cost about three halfpence a yard. The same paint will do for outdoor work by the addition of two ounces of slaked lime, two ounces of linseed oil, and two ounces of white Burgundy pitch: the pitch to be melted in a gentle heat with the oil, and then added to the smooth mixture of the milk and lime. In cold weather it must be mixed warm, to facilitate its incorporation with the milk.”

* * * * *

We add several recipes of various convenient kinds of paint to be employed in particular situations, and for special purposes.

“_A coating to preserve wood in damp situations_ may be made by beating twelve pounds of resin in a mortar, and adding to it three pounds of sulphur and twelve pints of whale oil. This mixture must then be melted over a fire, and stirred well while it is melting. Ochre of any required color, ground in oil, may be put to it. This composition must be laid on hot, and when the first coat is dry, which will be in two or three days, a second coat may be given; and a third, if necessary.”

“_Gas tar_, with yellow ochre, makes a very cheap and durable green paint for iron rails and coarse woodwork.”

“_Composition to lay on a boarded building, to resist the weather and likewise fire._—Take one measure of fine sand, two measures of wood-ashes well sifted, three of slaked lime ground up with oil, and mix them together; lay this on with a brush, the first coat thin, the second thick. This adheres so strongly to the boards covered with it, that it resists an iron tool, and the action of fire, and is impenetrable by water.”

“_A flexible paint for canvas_ is made by stirring into fifty-six pounds of common oil paint a solution of soap lye, made of half a pound of soap and three pounds of water: it must be used while warm.”

“_A black coloring for garden walls_ may be made by mixing quicklime, lampblack, a little copperas, and hot water.”

GARDEN WEEDS.

After hot weather sets in many are naturally inclined to relax their garden labors; they have eaten their salads, their radishes and peas; their beans and corn require but little attention, and as for the rest, it is left to the company of weeds.

WEEDS.—If the garden be thoroughly hoed twice or three times, the labor of keeping down weeds the rest of the summer will be small. It is best to go over a compartment first with the hoe, to cut off weeds and loosen the soil, then with a rake go over it again, levelling and smoothing the surface, and collecting the weeds into heaps, which should be wheeled to the manure-corner and left to decay. In raking, tread backward so that your tracks will be covered by the rake, and the bed left even.