Chapter 62

SNAILS. These are a species of slugs covered with shell, and which are very destructive to wall fruit. To prevent their ascending the standard trees, tie a coarse horse-hair rope about them, two or three feet from the ground; and to secure the wall trees, nail a narrow slip of horse-hair cloth against the wall, about half an inch from the ground, underneath the branches of the tree. In the winter time the snails may be found in the holes of walls, under thorns, behind old trees or close hedges, and might be taken and destroyed. When they attack vegetables, a few sliced turnips laid on the borders will attract them in the evening, when they may easily be gathered up. Lime and ashes strewed on the ground, will also prevent their depredations.

SNIPES. These birds will keep several days, and should be roasted without drawing, and then served on toast. Butter only should be eaten with them, as gravy takes off from the fine flavour. The thigh and back are most esteemed.

SNIPES IN RAGOUT. Slit them down the backs, but do not take out the insides; toss them up with a little melted bacon fat, seasoned with pepper and salt, and a little mushroom ketchup; when they are enough, squeeze in a little juice of lemon, and serve them up.

SNIPES IN SURTOUT. Half roast your snipes, and save the trail; then make a forcemeat with veal, and as much beef suet chopped, and beat in a mortar; add an equal quantity of bread crumbs: season it with beaten mace, pepper, salt, parsley, and sweet herbs shred fine; mix all together, and moisten it with the yolks of eggs: lay a rim of this forcemeat round the dish, then put in your snipes. Take strong gravy, according to your dish, with morels and truffles, a few mushrooms, a sweetbread cut in pieces, and an artichoke bottom cut small: let all stew together, then beat up the yolks of two or three eggs with a little white wine; pour this into your gravy, and keep it stirring till it is of a proper thickness, then let it stand to cool; work up the remainder of your forcemeat, and roll it out as you do paste; pour your sauce over the birds, and lay on your forcemeat; close the edges, and wash it over with the yolks of eggs, and strew bread crumbs over that; send it to the oven about half an hour, and then to table as hot as you can.

SNOW BALLS. Swell some rice in milk, and strain it off. Having pared and cored some apples, put the rice round them, and tie up each in a cloth. Add to each a bit of lemon peel, a clove, or cinnamon, and boil them well.

SNOW CREAM. Put to a quart of cream the whites of three eggs well beaten, four spoonfuls of sweet wine, sugar to sweeten, and a bit of lemon peel. Whip it to a froth, remove the peel, and serve the cream in a dish.

SOLDERING. Put into a crucible two ounces of lead, and when it is melted, throw in an ounce of tin. This alloy is that generally known by the name of solder. When heated by a hot iron, and applied to tinned iron, with powdered rosin, it acts as a cement or solder. It is also used to join leaden pipes, and other articles.

SOLES. A fine thick sole is almost as good eating as turbot, and may be boiled in the same way. Wash the fish and clean it nicely, put it into a fish-kettle with a handful of salt, and as much cold water as will cover it. Set it on the side of the fire, take off the scum as it rises, and let it boil gently about five minutes, or longer if it be very large. Send it up on a fish-drainer, garnished with slices of lemon and sprigs of curled parsley, or nicely fried smelts, or oysters. Slices of lemon for garnish are universally approved, either with fried or boiled fish. Parsley and butter, or fennel and butter, make an excellent sauce; chervil sauce, or anchovies, are also approved. Boiled soles are very good warmed up like eels, or covered with white wine sauce. When soles are very large, the best way is to take off the fillets, trim them neatly, and press them dry in a soft cloth. Egg them over, strew on fine bread crumbs, and fry them. Or skin and wash a pair of large soles very clean, dry them in a cloth, wash them with the yolk of an egg on both sides, and strew over them a little flour, and a few bread crumbs; fry them of a fine gold colour, in Florence oil, enough to cover them; when done, drain them, and lay them into an earthen dish that will hold them at length, and set them by to cool; then make the marinate with a pint of the best vinegar, half a pint of sherry, some salt, pepper, nutmeg, two cloves, and a blade of mace; boil all together for about ten minutes, then pour it over the fish hot, the next day they will be fit for use. When you dish them up, put some of the liquor over them; garnish the dish with fennel, sliced lemon, barberries, and horseradish. If you have any fried fish cold, you may put it into this marinate.--To fricassee soles white. Clean your soles very well, bone them nicely, and if large, cut them in eight pieces, if small, only in four; take off the heads; put the heads and bones, an anchovy, a faggot of sweet herbs, a blade or two of mace, some whole pepper, salt, an onion, and a crust of bread, all into a clean saucepan, with a pint of water, cover it close, and let it boil till a third is wasted; strain it through a fine sieve into a stew-pan; put in your soles with a gill of white wine, a little parsley chopped fine, a few mushrooms cut in two, a piece of butter rolled in flour, enough to thicken your sauce; set it over your stove, shake your pan frequently, till they are enough, and of a good thickness; take the scum off very clean, dish them up, and garnish with lemon and barberries.--Another way. Strip off the black skin of the fish, but not the white; then take out the bones, and cut the flesh into slices about two inches long; dip the slices in the yolks of eggs, and strew over them raspings of bread; then fry them in clarified butter, and when they are fried enough, take them out on a plate, and set them by the fire till you have made the following sauce. Take the bones of the fish, boil them up with water, and put in some anchovy and sweet herbs, such as thyme and parsley, and add a little pepper, cloves and mace. When these have boiled together some time, take the butter in which the fish was fried, put it into a pan over the fire, shake flour into it, and keep it stirring while the flour is shaking in; then strain the liquor into it, in which the fish bones, herbs, and spice were boiled, and boil it together, till it is very thick, adding lemon juice to your taste. Put your fish into a dish, and pour the sauce over it; serve it up, garnished with slices of lemon and fried parsley. This dish may take place on any part of the table, either in the first or second course.--Another way. Take a pair of large soles, skin and clean them well, pour a little vinegar, and strew some salt over them; let them lay in this till they are to be used. When you want to boil them, take a clean stew-pan, put in a pint of white wine, and a little water, a faggot of sweet herbs, an onion stuck with three or four cloves, a blade of mace, a little whole pepper, and a little salt. When your soles are enough, take them up, and lay them into a dish, strain off the liquor, put it into the stew-pan, with a good piece of butter rolled in flour, and half a pint of white shrimps clean picked; toss all up together, till it is of a proper thickness; take care to skim it very clean, pour it over the fish. Garnish the dish with scraped horseradish, and sliced lemon; or you may send them to table plain, and for sauce, chop the meat of a lobster, bruise the body very smooth with a spoon, mix it with your liquor, and send it to table in a boat or bason. This is much the best way to dress a small turbot.

SOLE PIE. Split some soles from the bone, and cut the fins close. Season with a mixture of salt, pepper, a little nutmeg and pounded mace, and put them in layers, with oysters. A pair of middling-sized soles will be sufficient, and half a hundred oysters. Put in the dish the oyster liquor, two or three spoonfuls of broth, and some butter. When the pie comes from the oven, pour in a cupful of thick cream, and it will eat excellently.--Another way. Clean and bone a pair of large soles; boil about two pounds of eels tender; take off all the meat, put the bones into the water they were boiled in, with the bones of the soles, a blade of mace, whole pepper, and a little salt; let this boil till you have about half a pint of strong broth. Take the flesh off the eels, and chop it very fine, with a little lemon peel, an anchovy, parsley, and bread crumbs: season with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and beaten mace; melt a quarter of a pound of butter, and work all up to a paste. Sheet the dish with a good puff-paste; lay the forcemeat on the paste, and then lay in the soles; strain off the broth, scum it clean, pour over the fish a sufficient quantity, and lay on the lid. When it comes from the oven, if you have any of the broth left, you may warm it, and pour it into the pie.

SOLID SYLLABUBS. Mix a quart of thick raw cream, one pound of refined sugar, a pint and a half of fine raisin wine, in a deep pan; and add the grated peel and the juice of three lemons. Beat or whisk it one way, half an hour; then put it on a sieve, with a piece of thin muslin laid smooth in the shallow end, till the next day. Put it in glasses: it will keep good in a cool place ten days.

SOMERSETSHIRE SYLLABUB. Put into a large china bowl a pint of port, a pint of sherry, or other white wine, and sugar to taste. Milk the bowl full. In twenty minutes' time, cover it pretty high with clouted cream. Grate nutmeg over it, add pounded cinnamon, and nonpareil comfits.

SORE BREASTS. Sore breasts in females, during the time of suckling, are often occasioned by the improper practice of drawing the breasts, which is both painful and dangerous. If they get too full and hard before the infant can be applied, it is better to let them remain a few hours in that state, than to use any unnatural means, or else to present the breast to a child that is a few months old. It is the application of too great force in drawing them, placing a child to suck at improper times, the use of stimulating liquors and heated rooms, which frequently occasion milk fevers and abscesses in the breast. The nipple is sometimes so sore, that the mother is sometimes obliged to refuse the breast, and a stagnation takes place, which is accompanied with ulcerations and fever. To prevent these dangerous affections, the young mother should carefully protrude the nipple between her fingers to make it more prominent, and cover it with a hollow nutmeg several weeks previous to her delivery. But if the parts be already in a diseased state, it will be proper to bathe them with lime water, or diluted port wine. After this the breast should be dressed with a little spermaceti ointment, or a composition of white wax and olive oil, which is mild and gentle. If this do not answer the purpose, take four ounces of diachylon, two ounces of olive oil, and one ounce of vinegar. Boil them together over a gentle fire, keep stirring them till reduced to an ointment, and apply a little of it to the nipple on a fine linen rag. If accompanied with fever, take the bark in electuary three or four times a day, the size of a nutmeg, and persevere in it two or three weeks if necessary.

SORE EYES. Pound together in a mortar, an ounce of bole-ammoniac, and a quarter of an ounce of white copperas. Shred fine an ounce of camphor, and mix the ingredients well together. Pour on them a quart of boiling water, stir the mixture till it is cold, and apply a drop or two to the eye, to remove humours or inflammation. A cooling eye-water may be made of a dram of lapis calaminaris finely powdered, mixed with half a pint of white wine, and the same of plantain water.

SORE THROAT. An easy remedy for this disorder is to dip a piece of broad black ribband into hartshorn, and wear it round the throat two or three days. If this be not sufficient, make a gargle in the following manner. Boil a little green sage in water, strain it, and mix it with vinegar and honey. Or pour a pint of boiling verjuice on a handful of rosemary tops in a basin, put a tin funnel over it with the pipe upwards, and let the fume go to the throat as hot as it can be borne. A common drink for a sore throat may be made of two ounces of Turkey figs, the same quantity of sun raisins cut small, and two ounces of pearl barley, boiled in three pints of water till reduced to a quart. Boil it gently, then strain it, and take it warm. Sometimes a handful of salt heated in an earthen pan, then put into a flannel bag, and applied as hot as possible round the throat, will answer the purpose. A fumigation for a sore throat may be made in the following manner. Boil together a pint of vinegar, and an ounce of myrrh, for half an hour, and pour the liquor into a basin. Place over it the large part of a funnel that fits the basin, and let the patient inhale the vapour by putting the pipe of the funnel into his mouth. The fumigation must be applied as hot as possible, and renewed every quarter of an hour, till the patient is relieved. For an inflammation or putrid sore throat, or a quinsey, this will be found of singular use if persisted in.

SORREL SAUCE. Wash and clean a quantity of sorrel, put it into a stewpan that will just hold it, with a piece of butter, and cover it close. Set it over a slow fire for a quarter of an hour, pass the sorrel with the back of a wooden spoon through a hair sieve, season it with pepper and salt, and a dust of powdered sugar. Make it hot, and serve it up under lamb, veal, or sweetbreads. Cayenne, nutmeg, and lemon juice, are sometimes added.

SORREL SOUP. Make a good gravy with part of a knuckle of veal, and the scrag end of a neck or a chump end of a loin of mutton. Season it with a bunch of sweet herbs, pepper, and salt, and two or three cloves. When the meat is quite stewed down, strain it off, and let it stand till cold. Clear it well from the fat, put it into a stewpan with a young fowl nicely trussed, and set it over a slow fire. Wash three or four large handfuls of sorrel, chop it a little, fry it in butter, put it into the soup, and let the whole stew till the fowl is well done. Skim it very clean, and serve it up with the fowl in the soup.