Bacon sliced thin, fried crisp without scorching, and finely minced can take the place of sardines. Indeed, in making fours the widest latitude prevails—you can vary flavors and proportions almost infinitely. Onion, even a suspicion of garlic, tabasco, Cayenne vinegar, walnut catsup, or Worcester can be added. Capers mixed through the mass make it wonderfully piquant. But things which need to be crisply fresh, such as celery and lettuce, must be let severely alone.

Stuffed Eggs: Staple for picnics, and barbecues. Boil twenty minutes, throw instantly in cold water, and shell immediately. Halve, mash yolks while hot with a plentiful seasoning of butter, pepper, salt, a little onion juice, capers or bigger pickle finely minced, and pimentos cut small. Work the seasoning well through, then shape into balls yolk-size, put each between two half-whites, and fasten together with a couple of tooth picks. Wrap each as finished in wax paper, and keep cool until needed. Here may be a good place to say that the quicker a hard-boiled egg is got out of its shell after chilling, the better and more delicate will be its flavor.

Fried Eggs: Anybody, almost, can fry an egg wrong. It takes some skill to fry one exactly right. Have the frying pan covered with grease, hot, but not scorching, slip in the eggs, previously broken separately, taking pains not to break yolks, sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper, keep edges from running together, then when they have hardened underneath, dip hot grease over the tops, keeping on till the white sets. If the heat is right the eggs will not stick to the pan. Cook as hard as is desirable, take up with a cake-turner, and lay in a shallow pan, lined with soft clean paper. Keep hot while they drain—it takes a minute or so—then remove to a blazing hot dish, and serve. If ham goes with them lay it in the middle, with eggs all around it. Triangles of fried toast in between look and taste well at breakfast.



Vegetable Soup: Cut into joints two fat chickens three parts grown, salt and pepper, and lay aside while you fry in a deep pot half a pound streaky bacon. Take out when crisp, put in the chicken, turning it so as to brown it all over. Put in a thick slice of ham, let it also brown a bit, do the same with four sliced onions—mild ones—then add two gallons cold water, half a teaspoonful salt, two pods red pepper, a dozen whole pepper corns, and two sprigs of parsley. Keep at a gentle boil for an hour, then put in two small heads of tender cabbage finely shredded, and six white potatoes, peeled and sliced a quarter-inch thick. Fifteen minutes later put in a quart of string beans, broken short, a pint of shelled lima beans, a stalk of celery cut fine lengthwise, and a dozen tomatoes, peeled and sliced. Follow them in ten minutes with a pint of tender okra sliced—next add a little later the pulp from a dozen ears of green corn, slit lengthwise and scraped. Stir almost constantly with a long-handled skimmer, after the corn pulp is in. If the skimmer brings up chicken bones, throw them aside. Just before serving put in a large spoonful of butter, rolled in flour. Taste, add salt if required. Serve very hot with corn hoe cake and cider just beginning to sparkle. If there is soup enough for everybody, nothing else will be wanted.

Black Turtle Bean Soup: Pick and wash clean, one quart black turtle beans, soak overnight in three quarts cold water, and put on to boil next morning in the soaking water. When it boils add three onions sliced, one carrot scraped and cut up, a stalk or so of celery, three sprigs of parsley, and one tomato, fresh or canned. Boil slowly four to five hours, until the beans are tender, filling up with cold water as that in the kettle wastes. When the beans are very soft, strain all through a fine collander, mashing through beans and vegetables, add a quart of very good soup stock, also a bay leaf, and boil up hard half a minute before serving. Put into each soup plate a slice of lemon, a slice of hard-boiled egg, and a tablespoonful of sherry wine before adding the soup.

Gumbo: Cut a tender, fat chicken, nearly grown, into joints, season well with salt and pepper, and fry for ten minutes in the fat from half a pound of bacon, with two thick slices of ham. Then add two onions chopped fine, six large ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped, adding with them their juice, half a large pod of mild red pepper, cut small, a teaspoonful of minced thyme and parsley mixed, a pint of tender sliced okra, stemmed and cut lengthwise. Cook altogether, watching all the time, and stirring constantly to prevent scorching until everything is well-browned. Then add three quarts fresh-boiled water, on the full boil, set the pot where it will barely simmer, and cook an hour longer, taking the same pains against scorching. Rice to eat with the gumbo—it must never be cooked in the pot—needs to be washed until the water runs clear from it, drained, then tossed into a wide kettle of water on the bubbling boil, and cooked for twenty minutes. The water must be salted to taste. Drain the rice in a collander, set it after draining in the oven for a minute. The grains should stand out separate, but be very tender. Rice thus cooked, and served with plenty of butter, is excellent as a vegetable.

Wedding Salad: Roast unstuffed, three young tender turkeys, or six full grown chickens. Take the white meat only, cut it fine with shears, cutting across the grain, while hot. Let cool, then mix it with ten hearts of crisp celery cut in bits, two heads of tender white cabbage, finely chopped, rejecting hard stalks—use three heads if very small—and set in a cool place. For the dressing boil thirty fresh eggs twenty minutes, throw in cold water, shell, take out the yolks, saving the white for garnishing, mash the yolks while hot very smooth with a pound and a half of best butter, season them well with salt, pepper, a little dry mustard, celery seed, and, if at hand, a dash of walnut catsup, but not enough to discolor. Add also a teaspoonful of sugar—this to blend flavors only. Add a little at a time enough warm vinegar to make as thick as cream. Chill, and pour over the salad, mix well through, then heap it in a big glass bowl, lined with partly white lettuce leaves, make a wreath of leaves around the top, and in serving, lay a larger lettuce leaf on each plate, filling it with the yellow-white salad.

Fruit Salad: Wash well a very ripe juicy pineapple, let dry, then shred with a fork, holding the crown in the left hand firmly, while you pull away sections with the fork in the right. Thus you avoid taking any of the hard center. Peel the sections delicately after they are separated, and cut them in long thin slivers, with the grain. Arrange these slivers star-shape upon lettuce leaves in the plates, lay a very narrow slip of pimento—sweet red pepper,—between each two of them, then fill in the points of the stars with grape-fruit pulp, freed of skin and seed, and broken into convenient sized bits. Lay more pimento strips upon it. Set on ice till ready to serve, then drench with sweet French dressing.

Sweet French Dressing: Mix well a scant teaspoonful of granulated sugar, the same of dry mustard, half a teaspoonful salt, as much black pepper and paprika mixed, put in the bottom of a deep small bowl, and stir for two minutes. Wet with claret vinegar, adding it gradually, and stirring smooth. Make as thick as cream. Add twenty drops tabasco, twenty drops onion juice, the strained juice of half a lemon, and half a teaspoonful of brandy, rum or whiskey. Mix well, then add, tablespoonful at a time, a gill of salad oil, stirring hard between spoonfuls. Put in more vinegar, more oil—the seasoning suffices for half a pint of dressing. Stir till it thickens—it should be like an emulsion when poured upon the salad. Keep on ice. The oil and vinegar will separate, but the dressing can be brought back by stirring hard.

Banana and Celery Salad: Chill heart celery and very ripe bananas, slice thin crosswise, mingling the rounds well. Pile on lettuce leaves, and cover with French dressing, into which finely grated cheese has been scantly stirred. This dressing with cheese is fine for tender Romaine, also for almost any sort of cooked vegetable used as salad.

Red and White Salad: Make cups from lettuce hearts, fasten them to the plate, with a drop of melted butter, fill lightly with grape-fruit pulp, and set a tiny red beet, boiled tender, in the middle. Have a very sharp French dressing made with oil lemon juice and Tarragon vinegar. Pass with this cheese straws, or toasted cracker sprinkled lightly with Parmesan cheese.

Pineapple Salad: Pare and core a very ripe, sweet pineapple, cut in slices crosswise, lay the slices in a bowl, with a sprinkle of sugar, half a cup rum or sherry, all the juice shed in cutting up, and a grate of nutmeg. Let stand till morning, cool, but not on ice. Make rosettes of small lettuce leaves in the plates, lay a slice of pineapple on each, fill the hole in the center with pink pimento cheese. Make the cheese into a ball the size of a marble, and stick in it a tiny sprig of celery top. Put a little of the syrup from the bowl in each plate, then finish with very sharp French dressing. Make the pimento cheese by grinding fine half a can of pimento, and mixing it through two cakes of cream cheese, softening the cheese with French dressing, and seasoning it to taste.

Cold Slaw: (V. Moroso.) Shave very fine half a medium sized head of tender cabbage, put in a bowl, and cover with this dressing. Melt over hot water a heaping tablespoonful of butter, with two tablespoonfuls sugar, a saltspoon of pepper, a teaspoonful of salt, dash of red pepper, and scant teaspoonful dry mustard. Mix smooth, then add gradually four tablespoonfuls vinegar, mix well, then put in the yolk of a raw egg, beating it in hard. Cook till creamy, but not too thick. Take from fire, and add if you like, two tablespoonfuls cream, but it is not essential—the dressing is good without it.

Tomato Soy: Take one gallon solid, ripe tomatoes, peeled and sliced, or four canfuls put up in glass, put in a preserving kettle with a quart of sliced onions, two tablespoonfuls salt, as much moist sugar, teaspoonful black pepper, saltspoon paprika, four hearts of celery cut fine, a tablespoonful of pounded cloves, alspice, mace, grated nutmeg, and cinnamon mixed. Stir well together and cook slowly, taking care not to burn, until reduced one-half. Dry mustard or mustard seed can be added, but many palates do not relish them. After boiling down add a quart of very sharp vinegar, stir well through, skim if froth rises, bottle hot, and seal. This keeps a long time in a dark cool place.

Table Mustard: Mix well together two tablespoonfuls dry mustard, scant teaspoon sugar, half a teaspoon salt. Wet smooth, to a very stiff paste with boiling water, then add either a teaspoon of onion juice, or a clove of garlic mashed, stir well through, add little by little, a tablespoonful olive oil, then thin, with very sharp vinegar, added gradually so as not to lump nor curdle, to the consistency of thin cream. Put in a glass jar, seal tight and let stand a week. A month is better—indeed, the mustard improves with age if not permitted to dry up.

Cabbage Pickle: Shred enough tender cabbage to make four quarts, put with it four large green tomatoes, sliced thin, six large onions, chopped fine, three green peppers also chopped, rejecting the seed, two ounces white mustard seed, half-ounce celery seed, quarter-ounce turmeric, three tablespoonfuls salt, two pounds white sugar, two quarts vinegar. Put all in a preserving kettle, set it upon an asbestos mat over a slow fire, and cook gently for several hours, stirring so it shall not scorch. It must be tender throughout but not mushy-soft.

Cauliflower Pickle: Drop two heads cauliflower in salted boiling water, cook fifteen minutes, take up, drop in cold water, separate into neat florets, and pack down in a clean crock. Pour upon the florets, hot, a quart of vinegar, seasoned with a mixture of two tablespoonfuls salad oil, teaspoonful dry mustard, tablespoonful sugar, teaspoonful salt, half-teaspoonful onion juice, half-teaspoonful black pepper, dash of paprika, ten drops tabasco. Bring all to a boil, and pour over the pickle, first strewing well through it blade mace, whole cloves, alspice and cinnamon, broken small but not powdered.

Pear Relish: Wash and stem a gallon of sound ripe, but not mellow Seckel pears, remove the blossoms with a very sharp narrow pen-knife, and stick a clove in each cut. Drain, and drop into a syrup, made of three pounds of sugar and a quart of vinegar. Bring to a quick boil, skim, and set back to simmer. Add after skimming, cloves, alspice, mace, ginger, cinnamon, and black pepper, pounded small but not powdered. Cut up a large sweet red pepper, and drop in the shreds. Let cook till the pears are tender. If the syrup is thin, add more sugar—some pears yield more juice than others. Sliced lemon gives a piquant tang, but is optional. Put in glass or stone jars, and cover tight, laying a brandy paper on top.

Cherries Piquant: Wash well, and stem but do not pit, half a gallon ripe Morello cherries. Drain well, strew spices well through them, lay thin sliced lemon on top, add a dozen whole pepper corns, and a tiny pod of Cayenne pepper, then pour over a pint of sharp vinegar, boiled with four pounds of sugar, and skimmed clean. Let stand all night, drain off syrup in the morning, boil up, skim, and pour again over the fruit. Next day, put all in a kettle, and cook for fifteen minutes, then put in glass jars, seal and keep dark. Especially good with game or any meat highly seasoned.

Gooseberry Jam Spiced: Wash, and nub half a gallon of green gooseberries, picked just before they ripen. Put them in a kettle with six large cups of sugar, a cup of water, half a teaspoonful each of cloves, alspice, mace, grated nutmeg, and cinnamon, the grated yellow peel of an orange and the strained juice. Cook slowly until thick—it should jelly when dropped on a plate. Pack in small jars. One of the very finest accompaniments to any sort of fowl. By leaving out the spices, and merely cooking the berries thick enough to cut like cheese, it is as fine as bar le duc for serving with salad.

Frozen Cranberry Sauce: (Mrs. R. Heim.) Gives a new tang to game, roast turkey, capon or duck. Cook a quart of cranberries until very soft in one pint water, strain through coarse sieve, getting all the pulp, add to it one and a half pints sugar, the juice—strained—of four lemons, one quart boiling water, bring to a boil, skim clean, let cool, and freeze rather soft.

"Apple Sauce Gone To Heaven": Thus a poet names it, though I, the architect thereof, insist that it is wholly and beautifully mundane. To make it, pare eight firm apples, the higher-flavored the better, core, drop into cold water, as pared, let stand till you make the syrup. Take a cup of sugar to each two apples and a cup of water to each two cups of sugar. Bring to a boil, skim, clean twice, then throw in half a dozen blades of mace, bits of thin yellow peel from two lemons, a few bits of stick cinnamon, and one pepper corn—no more. Stick four cloves in each apple, drop them in the syrup, which must be on the bubbling boil. After the apples are in—they should just cover the pan, add the strained juice of two lemons. Boil hard for five minutes, turn over the apples, simmer till done—they will look clear all through. Skim out with a perforated ladle, letting all syrup drain away from them, arrange in a deepish glass dish, or pile on a glass platter. Boil the syrup until it jellies when dropped on a plate, then dip it by spoonfuls over the apples, letting it harden as it is dipped.

Another way, and easier, is to wash and core the apples, without peeling, stick in the cloves, put in an earthen or agate baking dish, add the sugar, water, spices, cover close, and set in a hot oven. Cook until the apples are soft through, then uncover, and crisp a little on top. The peel will be edible, and the flavor richer than when boiled, but the dish is not so decorative.

Spiced Grapes: Wash and drain sound full-ripe grapes, pick from the stems, then pop out the grapes singly from the hulls. Save the hulls and juice. Put the pulp and seeds over the fire, cook until soft, strain through a colander to remove the seed, then add the pulp to the hulls and juice, put all over the fire, with equal weight of sugar, and spices to taste. I like cloves, alspice, mace and cinnamon, all pounded small, but not powdered. Cook until thick, take care not to burn, put into glasses like jelly, and serve with any sort of meat, or as a sweet.

Wild grapes washed, picked from stems, stewed and passed through a colander, furnish a pulp that is worth sugar, spices and so on. Cook as directed for vineyard grapes. By leaving out the most part of spices, and putting in vinegar, a cupful to the quart of syrup, the result is a very piquant jelly, or more properly, fruit cheese.

Sweet-Sour Pears: The pears must be ripe, but very firm. If large, pare and quarter, cutting out the core, stick a clove in each quarter, and drop as pared in cold ginger tea. If small or medium, wash instead of paring, take out cores, stick two cloves in each cavity, pack close in the kettle and cover when all are in with strained ginger tea. Boil in the tea fifteen minutes, until a fork will pierce without too much exertion. Skim out then, pack in jars, strewing spices liberally through, then cover with vinegar boiling hot, to which you had added a cupful of sugar for each quart. Let stand twenty-four hours, drain off, boil, and pour over again. Do this three times, then put all in the kettle, bring to a boil, cook five minutes, and put while hot in clean stone jars.

Spiced Plums: All manner of plums, even the red wild fruit, make the finest sort of relishes when cooked properly. Wash, pick, and weigh, take four pounds of sugar to five of fruit, with what spices you choose, never forgetting a tiny pod of Cayenne pepper, put all over the fire, let boil slowly, skimming off froth. Stir with a perforated skimmer—it will take out the most part of stones. A few stones left in give a fine bitter almond flavor after the plums have stood a while. Take care not to scorch, cook until very thick, then add strong vinegar, a cupful to the half-gallon of fruit. Boil three minutes longer, put hot into well-scalded jars, lay brandy paper over, or seal with paraffin.

Baked Peaches: Especially fine with barbecued lamb or roast duck or smothered chicken. Peel one dozen large, ripe, juicy peaches, stick two cloves in each, set in an agate or earthen pan they will just fill, add two cups sugar, a tablespoonful butter, a very little water, and a good strewing of mace and lemon peel. Cover close, and bake until done. Serve hot. Instead of butter, a gill of whiskey may be used, putting it in just before the peaches are taken up, and letting them stand covered until the spirit goes through them. So prepared, they are better cold than warm. The pits flavor the fruit so delicately they should never be removed.



Tomato Layer: Peel and slice a dozen meaty tomatoes, slice thin six mild onions, cut the corn from half a dozen large ears, saving the milk. Cover an earthen baking dish with a layer of tomatoes, season well with salt and pepper, also the least suspicion of sugar. Lay onion slices over, sprinkle lightly with salt, then add a layer of corn, seasoning it with salt and a little sugar. Repeat till the dish is full. Pour over the corn milk, the tomato juice, and a heaping tablespoonful of melted butter. Bake in a hot oven half an hour, covering it for twenty minutes, then browning uncovered. When corn is not in season, very crisp brown bread crumbs may take its place. But it should be against the law to put soft crumbs or any sort of bread uncrisped, into cooked tomatoes. A green pepper shredded and mixed through the layers adds to the flavor—for the devotees of green peppers.

Corn Pudding: Slit lengthwise the grains in eight large ears of corn, scrape out the pulp carefully, saving all milk that runs. The corn should be full, but not the least hard—if it has reached the dough state, the grains will keep shape. Beat three eggs very light, with half a teaspoonful salt, a tablespoonful sugar, plenty of black pepper, and paprika, half a cup of very soft butter, and half a cup sweet cream. Add the corn pulp and milk, stir well together—if too thick, thin with a little milk. Pour into a pudding dish, cover and bake ten minutes, then uncover, and bake until done.

Fried Corn: Fry crisp, half-pound streaky bacon, take up, and put into the fat, bubbling hot, eight large ears of corn cut from the cob, and seasoned with salt and black pepper. Add also the corn-milk, stir well together for five minutes, then put an asbestos mat under the skillet and let stand till the corn forms a thick brown crust over the bottom. Pour out, loosen this crust with a knife, lay on top the corn, lay on also the crisp bacon, and serve very hot. A famous breakfast dish down south all through "Roas'in' ear time." That is to say, from July to October.

Hulled Corn: Known otherwise as lye hominy, and samp. Put a pint of clean strong wood ashes into half a gallon of water, boil twenty minutes—or until the water feels slippery. Let settle, drain off the clear lye, and pour it upon as much white flint corn, shelled and picked, as it will cover. Let stand until the hulls on the grains slip under pressure—commonly twelve to twenty-four hours. Drain off lye, cover with cold water, rubbing and scrubbing the grains between the hands, till all are free of husks. Soak them in clear water, changing it every few hours till no taste of lye remains. Then boil slowly in three times its bulk of water, adding a little salt, but not much, until very tender. A grain should mash between finger and thumb. Fill up as the water boils away, and take care not to scorch. Cool uncovered, and keep cool. To cook, dip out a dishful, fry it in bubbling bacon fat as directed for corn. Or warm in a double boiler, and serve with butter and sugar or cream and sugar, as a cereal. Use also as a vegetable the same as rice or green corn. Hominy pudding, baked brown, and highly seasoned, helps out a scant dinner wonderfully, as corn is the most heating of grains, as well as one of the most nutritious.

Steamed Potatoes: Wash clean a dozen well-grown new potatoes, steam until a fork will pierce, dry in heat five minutes, then peel, and throw into a skillet, with a heaping tablespoonful of butter, well-rolled in flour, half a pint of rich milk, ten drops onion juice, salt and pepper to taste, and a teaspoonful of chopped parsley. The sauce must be bubbling when the potatoes are put in. Toss them in it for five minutes, put in deep dish and pour the gravy over. Serve very hot.

Candied Sweet Potatoes: Boil medium potatoes of even size, till a fork will pierce—steaming is better though a bit more trouble—throw in cold water for a minute, peel, and brush over with soft butter, then lay separately in a wide skillet, with an inch of very rich syrup over the bottom and set over slow fire. Turn the potatoes often in the syrup, letting it coat all sides. Keep turning them until candied and a little brown. If wanted very rich put butter and lemon juice in the syrup when making it. Blade mace also flavors it very well.

Tipsy Potatoes: Choose rather large potatoes, peel, and cut across into round slices about half an inch thick. Pack these in a baking dish with plenty of sugar, and butter, mace, yellow lemon peel, pounded cloves, and a single pepper corn. Add half a cup boiling water, cover and bake till a fork pierces, then uncover, add a glass of rum, and keep hot, but not too hot, until serving time. Or you can use half a pint of claret, instead of the boiling water. Still another way, is to mix a glass of sherry with a spoonful of cream, and add it to the dish five minutes before it goes to table. Sweet cider can take the place of wine. So can lemon or orange juice. But to my thinking, the Demon Rum, or his elder brother whiskey, is best of all.

Left-over Sweet Potatoes: Peel, slice thick, dip in melted butter, roll in sugar well seasoned with grated lemon peel, and nutmeg, lay in a pan so as not to touch and make very hot in the oven. This last estate is always better than the first.

Potato Balls: Mash boiled or baked sweet potatoes smooth, seasoning them well with salt, pepper, cinnamon, a little nutmeg, and melted butter. Bind with a well-beaten egg, flour the hands, and roll the mashed potato into balls the size of large walnuts. Roll the balls in fine crumbs or sifted cornmeal, drop in deep hot fat, fry crisp, drain, and use as a garnish to roast pork, roast fowl, or broiled ham.

Bananas: Bananas are far too unfamiliar in the kitchen. They can be cooked fifty ways—and in each be found excellent. The very best way I have yet found, is to peel, slice in half, lengthwise, lay in a dish with a cover, shake sugar over, add a little mace, lemon juice, lemon peel, and melted butter, then bake until soft—seven to fifteen minutes in a hot oven, according to the quantity in the dish. Or peel and slice, leave unseasoned, and lay in the pan bacon has been cooked in, first pouring away most of the fat. Cook five minutes in a hot oven, and send to table with hot bread, crisp bacon and coffee for breakfast. A thick slice of banana, along with a thick slice of tart apple, both very lightly seasoned, makes a fine stuffing for squabs. Half a banana delicately baked, and laid on a well-browned chop adds to looks and flavor.

Baking Vegetables: Paper bags taught me the ease and value of cooking vegetables in the oven rather than on top the stove. Less care is required, less water, rather less heat. Peas and lima beans, for example, after shelling, should be well washed, put in a pan with salt, seasoning and a little water, covered close, and baked in a hot oven half an hour to an hour. Green corn is never so well cooked, outside a paper bag, as by laying it on a rack in a covered pan, putting a little water underneath, covering close and setting the pan for nine minutes in a hot oven. It is sweeter and richer than even when put in cold unsalted water, brought to a boil, cooked one minute, then taken up. But however heat is applied, long cooking ruins it. Cook till the milk is set—not a second longer. Green peas should have several tender mint leaves put in with them, also sugar in proportion of a teaspoonful to half a pint of shelled peas. Lima beans are better flavored if the butter is put with them along with the water. Use only enough to make steam—say two tablespoonfuls to a fair-sized pan. Spinach and beet greens also bake well, but require more water. Leave out salt, adding it after draining and chopping them. They take twenty to thirty minutes, according to age.

All manner of fruits, berries in especial, cook finely in the oven. Put in earthen or agate ware, with sugar, spices and a little water, cover close and cook half to three quarters of an hour, according to bulk. Uncover then—if done take up, if not let cook uncovered as long as needed. Set the baking dishes always on rack or a grid-shelf, never on the oven bottom nor solid metal. Thus the danger of burning is minimized, also the need of stirring.

For cauliflower au gratin, cut the head into florets, lay them compactly in the baking dish, add a little water, with salt, pepper and butter. Bake covered until tender, then shake over the grated cheese, and set back in the oven three to five minutes. Tomatoes, peeled and whole except for cutting out the eyes, baked in a dish with a liberal seasoning of salt, pepper, and butter, a strewing of sugar and a little onion juice, look and taste wholly unlike stewed tomatoes, common or garden variety.

Boiling with Bacon: Get a pound of streaky bacon, cut square if possible, scrape and wash clean, put on in plenty of water, with a young onion, a little thyme and parsley, bring to a quick boil, throw in cold water, skim the pot clean, then let stand simmering for two to three hours. Add to it either greens—mustard, turnip, or dandelion or field salad, well washed and picked, let cook till very tender, then skim out, drain in a colander, lay in a hot dish with the square of bacon on top. Here is the foundation of a hearty and wholesome meal. The bacon by long boiling is in a measure emulsified, and calculated to nourish the most delicate stomach rather than to upset it. Serve two thin slices of it with each helping of greens. You should have plenty of Cayenne vinegar, very hot and sharp, hot corn bread, and cider or beer, to go along with it.

String beans, known to the south country as snaps, never come fully to their own, unless thus cooked with bacon. Even pork does not answer, though that is far and away better than boiling and buttering or flooding with milk sauces. It is the same with cabbage. Wash well, halve or quarter, boil until very tender, drain and serve. Better cook as many as the pot will hold and the bacon season, since fried cabbage, which is chopped fine, and tossed in bacon fat with a seasoning of pepper, salt and vinegar, helps out wonderfully for either breakfast, luncheon or supper. Never throw away proper pot-liquor—it is a good and cheap substitute for soup on cold days. Heat, and drop into it crisp bread-crusts—if they are corn bread crusts made very brown, all the better. Pioneer folk throve on pot-liquor to such an extent they had a saying that it was sinful to have too much—pot-liquor and buttermilk at the same meal.

Fruit Desserts: Fruits have affinities the same as human beings. Witness the excellent agreement of grape fruit and rum. Nothing else, not the finest liqueur, so brings out the flavor. But there are other fruits which, conjoined to the grape fruit, make it more than ever delicious. Strawberries for example. They must be fine and ripe. Wash well, pick, wash again, halve if very large, and mix well in a bowl with grape fruit pulp, freed of skin and seed, and broken to berry size. Add sugar in layers, then pour over a tumbler of rum, let stand six hours on ice, and serve with or without cream.

Strawberries mixed with ripe fresh pineapple, cut to berry size, and well sweetened, are worthy of sherry, the best in the cellar, and rather dry than sweet. Mixed with thin sliced oranges and bananas, use sound claret—but do not put it on until just before serving—let the mixed fruits stand only in sugar. Strawberries alone, go very well with claret and sugar—adding cream if you like. Cream, lightly sweetened, flavored with sherry or rum, or a liqueur, and whipped, gives the last touch of perfection to a dessert of mixed fruit, or to wine jelly, or a cup of after-dinner coffee, or afternoon chocolate.

A peach's first choice is brandy—it must be real, therefore costly. Good whiskey answers, so does rum fairly. A good liqueur is better. Sherry blends well if the fruit is very ripe and juicy. Peel and slice six hours before serving, pack down in sugar, add the liqueur, and let stand on ice until needed. Peaches cut small, mixed with California grapes, skinned and seeded, also with grape fruit pulp broken small, and drowned in sherry syrup, are surprisingly good. Make the sherry syrup by three parts filling a glass jar with the best lump sugar, pouring on it rather more wine than will cover it, adding the strained juice of a lemon, or orange, a few shreds of yellow peel, and a blade of mace, then setting in sunshine until the sugar dissolves. It should be almost like honey—no other sweetening is needed. A spoonful in after-dinner coffee makes it another beverage—just as a syrup made in the same way from rum, sugar and lemon juice, glorifies afternoon tea.

White grapes halved and seeded mixed with bananas cut small, and orange pulp, well sweetened and topped with whipped cream, either natural or "laced" with sherry, make another easy dessert. Serve in tall footed glasses, set on your finest doilies in your prettiest plates. Lay a flower or a gay candy upon the plate—it adds enormously to the festive effect and very little to the trouble.

A spoonful of rich wine jelly, laid upon any sort of fresh fruit, to my thinking, makes it much better. Cream can be added also—but I do not care for it—indeed do not taste it, nor things creamed. Ripe, juicy cherries, pitted and mixed equally with banana cubes, then sweetened, make a dessert my soul loves to recall. Not caring to eat them I never make ice cream, frozen puddings, mousses, sherbets, nor many of the gelatine desserts. Hence I have experimented rather widely in the kingdom of fruits. This book is throughout very largely a record of experience—I hope it may have the more value through being special rather than universal.

Sandwiches: In sandwich making mind your S's. That is to say, have your knife sharp, your bread stale, your butter soft. Moreover the bread must be specially made—fine grained, firm, not crumbly, nor ragged. Cut off crusts for ordinary sandwiches—but if shaping them with cutters let it stay. Then you can cut to the paper-thinness requisite—otherwise that is impossible. Work at a roomy table spread with a clean old tablecloth over which put sheets of clean, thick paper. Do your cutting on the papered surface—thus you save either turning your knife edges against a platter or sorely gashing even an old cloth. Keep fancy cutters all together and ready to your hand. Shape one kind of sandwiches all the same—thus you distinguish them easily. Make as many as your paper space will hold, before stamping out any—this saves time and strength. Clear away the fragments from one making, before beginning another sort, thus avoiding possible taints and confusion. Lay your made sandwiches on a platter under a dry cloth with a double damp one on top of it. They will not dry out, and it is much easier than wrapping in oiled paper.

The nearer fillings approach the consistency of soft butter, the better. In making sardine sandwiches, boil the eggs hard, mash the yolks smooth while hot, softening them with either butter or salad dressing—French dressing of course. It is best made with lemon juice and very sharp vinegar for such use. Work into the eggs, the sardines freed of skin and bone after draining well, and mashed as fine as possible. A little of their oil may be added if the flavor is liked. But lemon juice is better. Rub the mixture smooth with the back of a stout wooden spoon, and pack close in a bowl so it shall not harden.

Pimento cheese needs to be softened with French dressing, until like creamed butter. The finer the pimento is ground the better. Spread evenly upon the buttered bread, lay other buttered bread upon it, and pile square. When the pile gets high enough, cut through into triangles or finger shapes, and lay under the damp cloth. Slice Swiss cheese very thin with a sharp knife, season lightly with salt and paprika, and lay between the buttered slices. Lettuce dressed with oil and lemon juice and lightly sprinkled with Parmesan cheese makes a refreshing afternoon sandwich. Ham needs to be ground fine—it must be boiled well of course—seasoned lightly with made mustard, pepper, and lemon juice, softened a bit with clear oil or butter, and spread thin. Tongue must be treated the same way, else boiled very, very tender, skinned before slicing, and sliced paper-thin. Rounds of it inside shaped sandwiches are likely to surprise—and please—masculine palates.

For the shaped sandwich—leaf or star, or heart, or crescent, is the happy home, generally, of all the fifty-seven varieties of fancy sandwich fillings, sweet and sour, mushy and squshy, which make an honest mouthful of natural flavor, a thing of joy. Yet this is not saying novelty in sandwiches is undesirable. Contrariwise it is welcome as summer rain. In witness, here is a filling from the far Philippines, which albeit I have not tried it out yet, sounds to me enticing, and has further the vouching of a cook most excellent. Grate fine as much Edam or pineapple cheese as requisite, season well with paprika, add a few grains of black pepper, wet with sherry to the consistency of cream, and spread between buttered bread. If it is nut bread so much the better. Nut bread is made thus.

Nut Bread for Sandwiches: (Mrs. Petre.) Beat two eggs very light, with a scant teaspoonful salt, half cup sugar, and two cups milk. Sift four cups flour twice with four teaspoonfuls baking powder. Mix with eggs and milk, stir smooth, add one cup nuts finely chopped, let raise for twenty minutes, in a double pan, and bake in a moderately quick oven. Do not try to slice until perfectly cold—better wait till next day, keeping the bread where it will not dry out. Slice very thin, after buttering. Makes sandwiches of special excellence with any sort of good filling.



Brine for Pickling: Use rain water if possible and regular picking salt—it is coarse and much stronger than cooking salt. Lacking rain water, soften other water by dissolving in it the day beforehand, a pinch of washing soda—this neutralizes largely the mineral contents. Put over the fire in a deep, clean kettle, bring to a boil, put in salt—a pint to the gallon of water is the usual proportion. Boil and skim, add a pinch of saltpeter and tablespoonful of sugar for each pint of salt—the pinches must not be large. Add also six whole cloves for each gallon. Take from fire, let cool, drop in an egg—it should float to show the size of a quarter of a dollar. Otherwise the brine needs more salt. Dissolve a pint extra in as little water as suffices, and add to the brine, then test again. Put the brine when cold into a clean, roomy vessel, a keg or barrel, else a big stone crock. It should not quite half fill it. Provide a heading that will float upon it, also a light weight to keep the heading on the pickles when put in, and hold them under the brine. Unless so held the uppermost rot, and spoil the lot. Mold will gather around the head in spite of the cloves, but less than without them. Whenever you put in fresh pickles, take out the head, wash and scald, dry, and return to place.

Anything edible will make pickle—still there are many things better kept out of the brine. Cabbage and cauliflower for example do not need it—green tomatoes, onions, and Jerusalem artichokes are likewise taboo. The artichokes make good pickle, but it must be made all at once. Cut anything intended for the brine with a bit of stalk, and without bruising the stalk. Cucumbers should be small, and even in size, gherkins about half grown, string beans, three parts grown, crook-neck squash very small and tender, green peppers for mangoes, full grown but not turning, muskmelons for other mangoes three parts grown. Wash clean or wipe with a damp cloth. Cut pickles in early morning, so they may be fresh and crisp. Never put in any wilted bit—thereby you invite decay.

Watermelon rind makes fine pickle, sweet and sour—also citron, queen of all home made preserves. It must be fairly thick, sound and unbruised. The Rattle Snake melon has a good rind for such uses. The finer flavored and thinner-rinded varieties that come to market, are rarely worth cutting up. The cutting up is a bit tedious. The rind must be cut in strips rather more than an inch wide and three to five inches long, then trimmed on each side, free of green outer skin, and all trace of the soft inside. There will remain less than half an inch thickness of firm pale green tissue with potentialities of delight—if you know how to bring them out.

Firm clingstone peaches not fully ripe, can be put in the brine—they had better, however, be pickled without it. For whatever is put in, and saved by salt, must be freed of the salt by long soaking before it is fit to eat. The soaking process is the same for everything—take from brine, wash clean in tepid water, put to soak in cold water with something on top to hold the pickles down. Change water twice the first day, afterward every day, until it has not the least salt taste.

You can make pickle by soaking in brine three days, then washing clean, putting over the fire in clear water, bringing to scalding heat, then pouring off the water, covering with vinegar, and bringing just to a boil. Drain away this vinegar, which has served its turn, pack down the pickles in a jar, seasoning them well with mixed spices, whole, not in powder, covering with fresh, hot vinegar, letting cool uncovered, then tieing down, and keep dark and cool.

Watermelon Rind Pickle: Scald the soaked rind in strong ginger tea, let stand two minutes barely simmering, then skim out, lay in another kettle, putting in equal quantities of cloves, mace, alspice, and cinnamon, half as much grated nutmeg, the same of whole pepper corns, several pods of Cayenne pepper, white mustard and celery seed, covering with cider vinegar, the only sort that will keep pickles well, bringing just to the boil, then putting down hot in jars, tying down after cooling, and setting in a dark, cool, airy place.

For sweet pickle, prepare and season, then to each pint of vinegar put one and a half pounds of sugar, boil together one minute, stirring well, and skimming clean, then pour over rind and spices, keep hot for ten minutes without boiling, then put into jars. If wanted only a little sweet, use but half a pound of sugar.

Mangoes: Either green peppers or young melons will serve as a foundation—epicures rather preferring the peppers. After making thoroughly fresh, cut out the stems from the peppers, removing and throwing away the seed but saving the stems. Cut a section from the side of each melon, and remove everything inside. Fit back stems, sections, etc., then pack in a kettle in layers with fresh grape leaves between, add a bit of alum as big as the thumb's end, cover all with strong, cold vinegar, bring to a boil, and simmer gently for twenty minutes. Let stand in vinegar two or three days, throwing away the leaves. Take out, rinse and drain. To stuff four dozen, bruise, soak, cut small and dry, half a pound of race ginger, add half a pint each black and white mustard seed, mace, allspice, Turmeric, black pepper, each half an ounce, beat all together to a rather fine powder, add a dash of garlic, and mix smooth in half a cup of salad oil. Chop very fine a small head of firm but tender cabbage, three fine hearts of celery, half a dozen small pickled cucumbers, half a pint small onions, a large, sweet red pepper, finely shredded, add a teaspoonful sugar, a tablespoonful of brandy, or dry sherry, the mixed spices, work all well together, stuff the mangoes neatly, sew up with soft thread or tie about with very narrow tape, pack down in stone jars, cover with the best cold vinegar, pour a film of salad oil on top, tie down and let stand two months. If wanted sweetish, add moist sugar to the vinegar, a pound to the gallon. Mangoes are for men in the general—and men like things hot and sour.

Walnut Pickle: Gather white walnuts in June—they must be tender enough to cut with the finger nail. Wash, drain and pack down in jars smothered in salt. Let stand a fortnight, drain off the resultant brine then, scald the nuts in strong vinegar, let stand hot, but not boiling, for twenty minutes, then drain, and pack in jars, putting between the layers, a mixture of cloves, alspice, black and red pepper, in equal quantity, with half as much mace, nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger. Strew in a very little salt, and a little more sugar. Mix mustard and celery seed in a cup of salad oil, and add to the jars, after the nuts are in. Scald strong cider vinegar, skim clean, let cool, pour over the prepared nuts, film with oil on top. Leave open for two days—if the vinegar sinks through absorption, fill up the jars. Paste paper over mouths, tie down securely, and set in a cool place until next year. It takes twelve months for pickled walnuts fully to "find themselves."

Preserving Fruit: Peaches, pears, plums, or cherries, the process is much the same. Use the finest fruit, ripe but not over-ripe. There is no greater waste of strength, time, and sugar, than in preserving tasteless, inferior fruit. Pare peaches and drop instantly in water to save discoloration. Do the same with pears, pit cherries, saving the juice. Wash and prick plums if large—if small, merely wash and drain. Halve clear stone peaches but put in a few seeds for the flavor. Leave clingstones on the seed, unless very large, else saw them in three, across the stones. They make less handsome preserves thus sawn but of finer flavor. Weigh, take pound for pound of sugar, with a pound over for the kettle. Very acid fruit, cherries or gooseberries, will require six pounds of sugar to four of fruit. Pack pears and peaches after paring in the sugar over night. Drain off the syrup at morning, put the fruit in the kettle, cover with strained ginger tea, and simmer for ten minutes. Meantime cook the sugar and fruit juice in another kettle. Drop the fruit hot in the boiling syrup, set the kettle in a hot oven, and let it cook there until the preserves are done—the fruit clear, and the syrup thick. If it is not rich enough, skim out the fruit, and reduce the syrup by rapid boiling, then pour over the hot fruit in jars.

It is only by cooking thus in ginger tea, or plain water, pear and quince preserves can be made soft. Quinces do not need to stand overnight in sugar—rather heat the sugar, and put it in the liquid they have been boiled in, after skimming out the fruit. It should be cooked without sugar till a fork easily pierces it, but not until it begins to rag.

Put cherry juice and sugar over the fire, adding a little water if juice is scant, boil up, stirring well and skimming clean, then put in the fruit, and let it simmer ten minutes, and finish by setting the kettle in the oven till the preserves are rich and thick.

Fancy peach preserves require white, juicy fruit cut up, but not too thin. Let it stand in sugar overnight—drain off syrup in morning, boil, skim clean, then drop in fruit a handful at a time, and cook till clear. Skim out, put in more, lay cooked fruit on platters, and set under glass in sun. Sun all day. Next day boil syrup a little more, drop in fruit, heat through, then put all in clear glass jars, and set for ten days in hot sunshine, covered close. The fruit should be a rich translucent pink, the syrup as rich as honey, and a little lighter pink. These are much handsomer than the gingered peaches but not so good. Ginger tea in syrup makes it always darker.

Plums require nothing extra in the way of flavoring. Make a very thick syrup of the sugar and a little water, skim clean, drop in the pricked plums, and cook gently till clear. Skim out, reduce the syrup by further boiling and pour it over the fruit, packed in jars. By oven-cooking after a good boil up, there is so little occasion for stirring, the plums are left almost entirely whole.

Ginger Pears: (Leslie Fox.) Four pounds pears peeled and cut small, four pounds granulated sugar, juice of four lemons, and the grated peel of two, two ounces preserved ginger cut very fine. Cook all together over a slow fire until thick and rich—it should make a firm jelly. Put away in glass with brandy paper on top the same as other preserves.

Tutti Frutti: (Mrs. J. R. Oldham.) Begin by getting a big wide-mouthed jar, either thoroughly glazed earthenware, or thick, dark glass. Wash well, fill with hot water, add a half-pound washing soda, and let stand a day. Empty, rinse three times, and wipe dry. Thus you make end to potential molds and microbes. Do this in early spring. Put into the jar, a quart of good brandy and a tablespoonful of mixed spices—any your taste approves, also a little finely shredded yellow peel of lemons and oranges. Wash well and hull a quart of fine ripe strawberries, add them with their own weight in sugar to the brandy, let stand till raspberries and cherries are ripe, then put in a quart of each, along with their weight in sugar. Do this with all fruit as it comes in season—forced fruit, or that shipped long distances has not enough flavor. Add grapes, halved and seeded, gooseberries, nibbed and washed, blackberries, peaches pared and quartered. Currants are best left out, but by no means slight plums. The big meaty sorts are best. Add as much sugar as fruit, and from time to time more brandy—there must be always enough to stand well above the fruit. Add spices also as the jar grows, and if almond flavor is approved, kernels of all the stone fruit, well blanched. Lay on a saucer or small plate, when the jar is full, to hold the fruit well under the liquor. Tie down, and leave standing for three months. Fine for almost any use—especially to sauce mild puddings.

Green Tomato Preserves: Take medium size tomatoes, smooth, even, meaty, just on the point of turning but still green. Pare very carefully with a sharp knife. Cut out eyes, taking care not to cut into a seed cavity. Weigh—to four pounds fruit take six of sugar. Lay the peeled tomatoes in clear lime water for an hour, take out, rinse, and simmer for ten minutes in strained ginger tea. Make a syrup in another kettle, putting half a cup water to the pound of sugar. Skim clean, put in the tomatoes, add the strained juice of lemons—three for a large kettle full, and simmer for two hours, until the fruit is clear. Cut the lemon rind in strips, boil tender in strong salt water, then boil fresh in clear water, and add to the syrup. Simmer all together for another hour, then skim out the fruit, boil the syrup to the thickness of honey, and pour over the tomatoes after putting them in jars. It ought to be very clear, and the tomatoes a pale, clear green. Among the handsomest of all preserves, also the most delicious, once you get the hang of making them. Ripe yellow tomatoes are preserved the same way, except that they are scalded for peeling, and hardened by dropping in alum water after their lime-water bath. The same process applied to watermelon rind after it is freshened makes citron.

Brandy Peaches and Pears: These can be made without cooking. Choose ripe, perfect fruit, pare, stick three cloves in each, weigh, take pound for pound of sugar with one over for the jar. Pack down in a large jar, putting spices between, and filling sugar into every crevice. Crowd in every bit possible, then pour on enough whiskey to stand an inch above the fruit. Let stand—in twenty-four hours more whiskey will be needed. Fill up, sprinkle a few more whole cloves on top, also two small pods of Cayenne pepper, and half a dozen pepper corns. Tie down and keep cool. Fit for use in a fortnight, and of fine keeping quality. The same treatment with vinegar in place of whiskey makes very good sweet pickle.

Another way, is to pack the fruit in sugar over night, drain off the juice at morning, boil and skim it, and pour back upon the fruit. Repeat twice—the third time put everything in the kettle, cook till a fork will pierce the fruit, then pack in jars, adding spices to taste, and one fourth as much whiskey as there is fruit and syrup. This likewise can be turned into very rich sweet pickle, by using vinegar instead of whiskey, putting it with the syrup at first boiling, sticking cloves in the fruit, and adding spices to taste.

Throw stemmed and washed cherries, unpitted, into thick syrup made of their weight in sugar with half a cup water to the pound. Let boil, set in oven for half an hour, take up, add spices, and either brandy or vinegar, in the proportion of one to three. Let stand uncovered to cool, put in jars, cover with brandy paper, tie down and keep dark and cool.

Tea: Coffee: Chocolate: My tea-making is unorthodox, but people like to drink the brew. Bring fresh water to a bubbling boil in a clean, wide kettle, throw in the tea—a tablespoonful to the gallon of water, let boil just one minute, then strain from the leaves into a pot that has stood for five minutes full of freshly boiled water, and that is instantly wrapped about with a thick napkin, so it shall not cool. Serve in tall glasses with rum and lemon, or with sherry syrup, flavored with lemon, add a Maraschino cherry or so, or a tiny bit of ginger-flavored citron. This for the unorthodox. Those who are orthodox can have cream either whipped or plain, with rock candy crystals instead of sugar.

Coffee to be absolutely perfect should never get cold betwixt the beginning of roasting and the end of drinking. Since that is out of the question save to Grand Turks and faddists, mere mortals must make shift with coffee freshly ground, put in a very clean pot, with the least suspicion of salt—about six fine grains to the cupful, fresh cold water, in the proportion of three cupfuls to two heaping spoonfuls of ground coffee, then the pot set where it will take twenty minutes to boil, and so carefully watched it can not possibly boil over. Boiling over ruins it—makes it flat, bitter, aroma-less. So does long boiling—one minute, no more, is the longest boiling time. Quick boiling is as bad—the water has not time to extract the real goodness of the coffee. Let stand five minutes to clear, keeping hot. Those who drink coffee half milk may like it stronger—a cupful of water to the heaping spoonful of coffee. I do not thus abuse one of the crowning mercies, so make my coffee the strength I like to drink it. Reducing with boiling water spoils the taste for me. So does pouring into another pot—my silver pot is used only upon occasions when ceremony must outweigh hospitality. In very cold weather hot water may well warm cups both for tea and coffee. Standing on the grounds does not spoil the flavor of coffee as it does tea.

Coffee from the original pot is quite another affair from the same thing shifted. I am firmly of opinion that many a patent coffee-maker has gone on to success through the fact that cups were filled directly from the urn. I always feel that I taste my coffee mostly with my nose—nothing refreshes me like the clean, keen fragrance of it—especially after broken rest. It is idle to talk as so many authorities do, of using "Java and Mocha blended." All the real Java and Mocha in the world is snapped up, long before it filters down to the average level. Back in the Dark Ages of my childhood, I knew experimentally real Java—we got it by the sack-full straight from New Orleans—and called the Rio coffee used by many of our neighbors "Seed tick coffee," imagining its flavor was like the smell of those pests. Nowadays, Rio coffee has pretty well the whole world for its parish. Wherefore the best one can do, is to get it sound, well roasted, and as fresh as may be. Much as I love and practice home preparation, I am willing to let the Trust or who will, roast my coffee. Roasting is parlous work, hot, tedious, and tiresome, also mighty apt to result in scorching if not burning. One last caution—never meddle with the salt unless sure your hand is light, your memory so trustworthy you will not put it in twice.

Chocolate spells milk, and cream, and trouble, hence I make it only on occasions of high state. Yet—I am said to make it well. Perhaps the secret lies in the brandy—a scant teaspoonful for each cake of chocolate grated. Put in a bowl after grating, add the brandy, stir about, then add enough hot water to dissolve smoothly, and stir into a quart of rich milk, just brought to a boil. Add six lumps of sugar, stir till dissolved, pour into your pot, which must have held boiling water for five minutes previously, and serve in heated cups, with or without whipped cream on top. There is no taste of the brandy—it appears merely to give a smoothness to the blending. If the chocolate is too rich, half-fill cups with boiling water, then pour in the chocolate. There are brands of chocolate which can be made wholly of water—they will serve at a pinch, but are not to be named with the real thing. Cocoa I have never made, therefore say nothing about its making. Like Harry Percy's wife, in cooking at least, I "never tell that which I do not know."



When the peach orchard "hit" it meant joy to the plantation. Peaches had so many charms—and there were so many ways of stretching the charms on through winter scarcity. Peach drying was in a sort, a festival, especially if there were a kiln, which made one independent of the weather. It took many hands wielding many sharp knives in fair fruit to keep a kiln of fair size running regularly. This though it were no more than a thing of flat stones and clean clay mud, with paper laid over the mud, and renewed periodically. There was a shed roof, over the kiln, which sat commonly in the edge of the orchard. Black Daddy tended the firing—with a couple of active lads to cut and fetch wood, what time they were not fetching in great baskets of peaches.

Yellow peaches, not too ripe but full flavored, made the lightest and sweetest dried fruit. And clingstones were ever so much better for drying than the clear-seed sorts. Some folk took off the peach fuzz with lye—they did not, I think, save trouble thereby, and certainly lost somewhat in the flavor of their fruit. Mammy was a past mistress of cutting "cups." That is to say, half-peaches, with only the seed deftly removed. She sat with the biggest bread tray upon her well cushioned knees, in the midst of the peelers, who as they peeled, dropped their peaches into the tray.

When it over-ran with cups, somebody slimmer and suppler, took it away, and spread the cut fruit, just touching, all over the hot kiln. It must not be too hot—just so you couldn't bear the back of your hand to it was about right. Daddy kept the temperature even, by thrusting into the flues underneath it, long sticks of green wood, kindled well at the flue-mouths. Cups shrank mightily in a little while—you could push of an early trayful till it would no more than cover space the size of a big dish, long before dinner time—in other words twelve o'clock—drying was in full blast by seven. With fruit in gluts, and dropping fast, the kiln was supplemented by scaffolds. Clean planks laid upon trestles, and set in full sunshine, gave excellent accounts of themselves. This of course if the sun shone steadily—in showery weather scaffold-drying was no end of trouble. Weather permitting, it made—it still makes—the finest and most flavorous dried fruit ever eaten.

The black people chose clear-seed peaches for their individual drying. They made merry over splitting the fruit, and placing it, sitting out in front of their cabins in the moonshine, or by torch-light. Washing was all they gave the peach outsides—a little thing like a fuzzy rind their palates did not object to. It was just as well, since clear-seed fruit, peeled, shrinks unconscionably—to small scrawny knots, inclined to be sticky—though it is but just to add, that in cooking, it comes back to almost its original succulence. When the peach-cutting was done, there was commonly a watermelon feast. Especially at Mammy's house—Daddy's watermelons were famed throughout the county. He gave seed of them sparingly, and if the truth must be told, rather grudgingly—but nobody ever brought melons to quite his pitch of perfection. Possibly because he planted for the most part, beside rotting stumps in the new ground, where the earth had to be kept light and clean for tobacco, and where the vines got somewhat of shade, and the roots fed fat upon the richness of virgin soil.

It took eight bushels of ripe fruit, to make one of dry—this when the peaches were big and fleshy. Small, seedy sorts demanded ten bushels for one. Unpeeled, the ratio fell to seven for one. But there was seldom any lack of fruit—beside the orchard, there were trees up and down all the static fence rows—the corner of a worm fence furnishing an ideal seat. Further, every field boasted trees, self-planted, sprung from chance seed vagrantly cast. These volunteer trees often had the very best fruit—perhaps because only peaches of superior excellence had been worth carrying a-field. Tilth also helped—the field trees bent and often broke under their fruity burdens. It was only when late frosts made half or three parts of the young fruit drop, that we knew how fine and beautiful these field peaches could be. Our trees, being all seedlings, were in a degree, immortelles. Branches, even trunks might bend and break, but the seminal roots sent up new shoots next season, which in another year, bore fruit scantily. Still, these renewals never gave quite such perfect fruit as grew upon vigorous young trees, just come to full bearing.

Here or there a plantation owner like my starch and stately grandfather, turned surplus peaches into brandy. In that happy time excise was—only a word in the dictionary, so the yield of certain trees, very free-bearing, of small, deep, red, clear-seed fruit, was allowed to get dead-ripe on the trees, then mashed to a pulp in the cider trough, and put into stands to ferment, then duly distilled. Barrelled, after two years in the lumber house, it was racked into clean barrels, and some part of it converted into "peach and honey," the favorite gentleman's tipple. Strained honey was mixed with the brandy in varying proportions—the amount depending somewhat upon individual tastes. Some used one measure of honey to three of brandy, others put one to two, still others, half and half, qualifying the sweetness by adding neat brandy at the time of drinking. Peach and honey was kept properly in stone jugs or in demijohns, improved mightily with age, and was, at its best, to the last degree insidious. Newly mixed it was heady, but after a year or more, as smooth as oil, and as mellow. The honey had something to do with final excellence. That which the bees gathered from wild raspberries in flower, being very clear, light-colored and fine-flavored, was in especial request.

I think these peaches of the brandy orchards traced back to those the Indians, Creeks, Choctaws, and Cherokees, planted in the mountain valleys of Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. They got the seed from early Spaniard voyagers to Florida. There was indeed a special Indian peach, as dark-skinned as its namesake, blood-red inside and out, very sweet and full of juice, if permitted to ripen fully—but as ill-tasting almost as a green persimmon, if unripe. There were clearstone and clingstone sorts, and one tree differed from another in glory of flavor, even as one star. That was the charm of our seedlings—which had further a distinction of flavor no commercial fruit ever yet owned.

August peaches were for drying—in September, early, came the Heaths, for preserves, brandy fruit, and so on. October peaches, nearly all clear-seed, made the finest peach butter. Understand, in those days, canning, known as "hermetic sealing," was still a laboratory process. I wonder if anybody else recalls, as I do, the first editions of fruit cans? They were of tin, tall and straight, with a flaring upstanding tin ruffle around the tops. The ruffle was for holding the sealing wax, into which the edge of the tin top was thrust. They did not last long—pretty soon, there were cans of the present shape—but sealing them with wax was hard work, likewise uncertain. Women everywhere should rise and call blessed he who invented the self-sealing jar.

Return we to our peach butter. It began in cider—the cider from fall apples, very rich and sweet. To boil it down properly required a battery of brass kettles swung over a log fire in the yard, the same as at drying up lard time. Naturally brass kettles were at a premium—but luckily everybody did not make peach butter, so it was no strain upon neighborly comity to borrow of such. It took more than half a day to boil down the cider properly—kettles were filled up constantly as there was room. By and by, when the contents became almost syrup, peaches went in—preferably the late, soft, white ones, dead ripe, very juicy, and nearly as sweet as sugar. After the kettles were full of them, peeled and halved, of course, the boiling went on until the fruit was mushy. Constant stirring helped to make it so. Fresh peaches were added twice, and cooked down until the paddle stood upright in the middle of the kettle. Then came the spicing—putting in cloves, mace, bruised ginger, and alspice—sparingly, but enough to flavor delicately. If the white peaches ran short, there might be a supplemental butter-making when the Red Octobers came in, at the very last of the month. They were big and handsome, oval, with the richest crimson cheeks, but nothing like so sweet as the white ones. So sugar, or honey, was added scantly, at the end of the boiling down. If it had been put in earlier, it would have added to the danger of burning.

A six-gallon crock of peach butter was no mean household asset—indeed it ranked next to the crock of blackberry jam. It was good as a sauce, or lightly sweetened, to spread on crust. As a filling for roly-polys it had but one superior—namely dried peaches properly stewed.

Proper stewing meant washing a quart of dry fruit in two waters, soaking overnight, then putting over the fire in the soaking water, covering with a plate to hold the fruit down, and simmering at the least five hours, filling up the kettle from time to time, and adding after the fruit was soft a pound of sugar. Then at the very last spices to taste went in. If the fruit were to be eaten along with meat, as a relish, a cupful of vinegar was added after the sugar. This made it a near approach to the finest sweet pickle. But as Mammy said often: "Dried peaches wus good ernough fer anybody—dest by dee sefs, dry so."

Apple drying commonly came a little before peach. Horse apples, the best and plentiest, ripened in the beginning of August. They were kiln-dried, or scaffold-dried, and much less tedious than peaches since they were sliced thin. When they got very mellow, drying ceased—commonly everybody had plenty by that time—and the making of apple butter began. It differed little from peach butter in the making, though mightily in taste—being of a less piquant flavor. Cider, newly run was essential to any sort of butter—hence the beating was done before breakfast. Cider mills were not—but cider troughs abounded. They were dug from huge poplar logs, squared outside with the broad axe, and adzed within to a smooth finish. Apples well washed, were beaten in them with round headed wooden pestles, and pressed in slat presses, the pomace laid on clean straw, after the manner of cider pressing in English orchards. The first runnings, somewhat muddy, were best for boiling down, but the clear last runnings drank divinely—especially after keeping until there was just the trace of sparkle to them.

Winter cider was commonly allowed to get hard. So was that meant for distilling—apple brandy was only second to peach. But a barrel or keg, would be kept sweet for women, children, and ministers—either by smoking the inside of a clean barrel well with sulphur before putting in the cider, or by hanging inside a barrel nearly full, a thin muslin bag full of white mustard seed. Cider from russets and pear apples had a peculiar excellence, so was kept for Christmas and other high days.

Pear cider—perry—we knew only in books. Not through lack of pears but inclination to make it. Pears were dried the same as other fruit, but commonly packed down after drying in sugar. Thus they were esteemed nearly as good as peach chips, or even peach leather.

Peach chips were sliced thin, packed down in their own weight of sugar and let stand twenty-four hours to toughen. Then the syrup was drained from them, boiled, skimmed clean, spiced with mace and lemon peel, and the slices dropped into it a few at a time and cooked until sweet through. Then they were skimmed out, spread on dishes well sprinkled with sugar, dredged with more sugar, set under glass in sunshine and turned daily until dry. They were delicious, and served as other confections—passed around with nuts and wine, or eaten instead of candy.

So were cherries, dried in exactly the same manner, after pitting. When dried without sugar they were used for cooking. So also were tomato figs. Yellow tomatoes, smooth and even were best—but red ones answered—the meatier the better. After scalding, peeling, soaking an hour in clear lime-water to harden, they were rinsed clean, then dropped in thick boiling syrup, a few at a time, simmered an hour, then skimmed out, drained, sugared and dried under glass in the sun, or failing sunshine, upon dishes in a very slow oven. Full-dry, they were packed down in powdered sugar, in glass jars kept tightly closed. Unless thus kept they had a knack of turning sticky—which defeated the purpose of their creation.

Peach leather may not appeal to this day of many sweets—but it was good indeed back in the spare elder time. To make it the very ripest, softest peaches were peeled, and mashed smooth, working quickly so the pulp might not color too deeply, then spread an inch thick upon large dishes or even clean boards, and dried slowly in sunshine or the oven. After it was full-dry, came the cutting into inch-strips. This took a very sharp knife and a steady hand. Then the strips were coiled edgewise into flat rounds, with sugar between the rounds of the coils, which had to be packed down in more sugar and kept close, to save them from dampness, which meant ruin.

If you had a fond and extravagant grandmother, you were almost sure to have also a clove apple. That is to say, a fine firm winter apple, stuck as full of cloves as it could hold, then allowed to dry very, very slowly, in air neither hot nor cold. The cloves banished decay—their fragrance joined to the fruity scent of the apple, certainly set off things kept in the drawer with the apple. The applemakers justified their extravagance—cloves cost money, then as now—by asserting a belief in clove apples as sovereign against mildew or moths—which may have had a color of reason.

The quince tree is the clown of the orchard, growing twisted and writhing, as though hating a straight line. Notwithstanding, its fruit, and the uses thereof, set the hall mark of housewifery. Especially in the matter of jelly-making and marmalade. Further a quince pudding is in the nature of an experience—so few have ever heard of it, so much fewer made or tasted it. The making requires very ripe quinces—begin by scrubbing them clean of fuzz, then set them in a deep pan, cover, after adding a tablespoonful of water, and bake slowly until very soft. Scrape out the pulp, throw away cores and skin. To a pint of pulp take four eggs, beat the yolks light with three cups of sugar and a cup of creamed butter, add the quince pulp, a little mace broken small or grated nutmeg, then half a cup of cream, and the egg-whites beaten stiff. Bake in a deep pan, and serve hot with hard or wine sauce.

Here are some fine points of jelly-making learned in that long ago. To make the finest, clearest jelly, cook but little at a time. A large kettleful will never have the color and brightness of two or three glasses. Never undertake to make jelly of inferior fruit—that which is unripe or over-ripe, or has begun to sour. Wash clean, and drain—paring is not only waste work, but in a measure lessens flavor. Put a little water with the fruit when you begin cooking it—cook rather slowly so there shall be no scorching, and drain out rather than press out the juice. Draining is much freer if the fruit is spread thin, rather than dumped compactly in a bag. Double cheese cloth sewed fast over stout wire, and laid on top of a wide bowl, makes a fine jelly drainer—one cheap enough to be thrown away when discolored. A discolored bag, by the way, makes jelly a bit darker. If there is no pressure flannel is not required.

Plenty as fruit was with us, Mammy made jelly and marmalade from the same quinces. They were well washed, peeled, quartered and the cores removed, then the quarters boiled until soft in water to half-cover them, skimmed out, mashed smooth with their own weight of sugar, and spices to taste, then cooked very slowly until the spoon stood upright in the mass, after which it went into glass jars, and had a brandy paper laid duly on top.

Cores and paring were boiled to rags in water to fully cover them, then strained out, the water strained again, and added to that in which the fruit had boiled. Sugar was added—a pound to the pint of juice. But first the juice was brought to a boil, and skimmed very clean. The sugar, heated without scorching, went in, and cooking continued until the drop on the tip of the spoon jellied as it fell. Mammy hated jelly that ran—it must cut like butter to reach her standard. Occasionally she flavored it with ginger—boiling the bruised root with the cores—but only occasionally, as ginger would make the jelly darker. Occasionally also she cooked apples, usually fall pippins, with the quinces, thus increasing the bulk of both jelly and marmalade, with hardly a sensible diminution of flavor.

All here written applies equally to every sort of fruit jelly—apple, peach, currant, the whole family of berries. Mammy never knew it, but I myself have found the oven at half-heat a very present help in jelly-making. Fruit well prepared, and put into a stone or agate vessel, covered and baked gently for a time proportionate to its bulk, yields all its juice, and it seems to me clearer juice, than when stewed in the time-honored brass kettle. Hot sugar helps to jellying quickly—and the more haste there, the lighter and brighter the result. Gelatin in fruit jellies I never use—it increases the product sensibly, but that is more than offset by the decrease in quality.



It was no trouble at all to make occasions. Indeed, the greatest of them, weddings, really made themselves. A wedding made imperative an infare—that is to say, if the high contracting parties had parental approval. Maybe I had better explain that infare meant the bride's going home—to her new house, or at least her new family. This etymologically—the root is the Saxon faran, to go, whence come wayfaring, faring forth and so on. All this I am setting forth not in pedantry, but because so many folk had stared blankly upon hearing the word—which was to me as familiar as word could be. In application it had a wide latitude. Commonly the groom or his family gave the infare, but often enough some generous and well-to-do friend, or kinsman, pre-empted the privilege. Wherever held, it was an occasion of keen and jealous rivalry—those in charge being doubly bent on making the faring in more splendid than the wedding feast. Naturally that put the wedding folk on their mettle. Another factor inciting to extra effort was—the bundles. All guests were expected to take home with them generous bundles of wedding cake in all its varieties. I recall once hearing a famous cake baker sigh relief as she frosted the hundredth snow ball, and said: "Now we are sure to have enough left for the bundles—they are such a help."

But baking cakes, and cooking in general, though important, were not the main things. Setting the table, so it should outshine all other wedding tables gave most concern. To this end all the resources of the family, and its friends for a radius of ten miles, were available—glass, silver, china, linen, even cook pots and ovens at need. Also and further it was a slight of the keenest, if you were known as a fine cake maker, not to be asked to help. A past mistress of paper cutting was likewise in request. Cut papers and evergreens were the great reliances in decoration. They made a brave showing by candlelight. Oil lamps were few, kerosene undiscovered, and either lard oil, or whale oil, all too often smelled to heaven, to say nothing of smoking upon the least provocation. So a lamp, if there were one, sat in state within the parlor. The long table got its light from candelabra—which as often as not were homemade. The base was three graduated blocks of wood, nailed to form a sort of pyramid, with a hole bored in the middle to receive a stout round upright, two inches across. It stood a foot high, and held up cross-arms three feet across, with a tin candlesocket upon each end. Another socket was set where the arms crossed—thus each candelabra was of five-candle power. Set a-row down the middle of the table, with single candles in tall brass sticks interspersed, they gave a fine soft illumination. Often they were supplemented with candelabra of bronze or brass, tricked out with tinkly pendant prisms. Such household gauds were commonly concentrated at the spot where the bride and her maids would stand. They were more elegant, of course, than the made candle-holders—but not to my thinking a whit the handsomer—after the paper-cutters had done their work.

Their work was turning white paper into fringe and lace. Fringed strips wound all over and about, hid the foundation wood. Paper tulips, deftly fashioned, held the tin rings in ambush—with clusters of lacy leaves pendant below. Sometimes a paper rose tipped each arm-end—sometimes also, there were pendant sprays of pea-shaped blossoms. How they were made, with nothing beyond scissors, pen-knives for crimping, and the palm of the hand for mold, I confess I do not understand—but I know they were marvels. The marvels required a special knack, of course—also much time and patience. Wherefore those who had it, exercised it in scraps of leisure as paper came to hand, laying away the results against the next wedding even though none were imminent. Leaves and the round lace-edged pieces to go under cakes, it was easy thus to keep. Flowers, roses, tulips and so on, had a trick of losing shape—besides, although so showy, they were really much easier to make.

It took nice contrivance to make table-room—but double thicknesses of damask falling to the floor either side hid all roughness in the foundation. Shape depended much upon the size of the supper-room—if it were but an inclosed piazza, straight length was imperative. But in a big square or parallelogram, one could easily achieve a capital H—or else a letter Z. Z was rather a favorite in that it required less heavy decoration, yet gave almost as much space. A heart-cake for either tip, a stack at each acute angle, with the bride's cake midway the stem, flanked either hand by bowls of syllabub and boiled custard, made a fine showing. A letter H demanded four heart-cakes—one for each end, also four stacks, and crowded the bride and her party along the joining bar.

Heart-cakes were imperative to any wedding of degree. Local tinsmiths made the moulds for them—they were deeply cleft, and not strictly classic of outline. But, well and truly baked, frosted a glistening white, then latticed and fringed with more frosting, dribbled on delicately from the point of a tube, they were surely good to look at. If the bride's cake were white all through, the heart-pans were usually filled with gold-cake batter—thus white and yolk of eggs had equal honor. More commonly though, the most part of wedding cake was pound cake in the beginning—the richer the better. Baked in deep round-bottomed, handleless coffee cups, and iced, it made the helpful snow balls. Baked in square pans, rather shallow, cut into bars, crisped, frosted and piled cob-house fashion, it made pens. Sliced crosswise and interlaid with jelly it became jelly cake. To supplement it, there were marble cake, spice cake, plum cake, ever so many more cakes—but they were—only supplements.

Stacks were either round or square, baked in pans of graduated size, set one on the other after cooling thoroughly, then frosted and re-frosted till they had a polar suggestion. If round there was commonly a hole running down the middle, into this was fitted a wide mouthed but small glass bottle, to hold the stems of the evergreen plume topping the stack. Here or there in the plume, shone a paper rose or starflower—in the wreath of evergreen laid about the base, were tulips, lilies, and bigger roses, all made of paper. Occasionally trailing myrtle, well washed and dried, was put about the components of the stacks just before they were set in place. If the heart-cakes had missed being latticed, they likewise were myrtle-wreathed. The bride's cake was left dead-white, but it always stood on something footed, and had a wreath of evergreen and paper flowers, laid upon a lace-cut paper about the foot.

Baking it was an art. So many things had to go in it—the darning needle, thimble, picayune, ring, and button. The makers would have scorned utterly the modern subterfuge of baking plain, and thrusting in the portents of fate before frosting. They mixed the batter a trifle stiff, washed and scoured everything, shut eyes, dropped them, and stirred them well about. Thus nobody had the least idea where they finally landed—so the cutting was bound to be strictly fair. It made much fun—the bride herself cut the first slice—hoping it might hold the picayune, and thus symbolize good fortune. The ring presaged the next bride or groom, the darning needle single blessedness to the end, the thimble, many to sew for, or feed, the button, fickleness or disappointment. After the bridal party had done cutting, other young folk tempted fate. Bride's cake was not for eating—instead, fragments of it, duly wrapped and put under the pillow, were thought to make whatever the sleeper dreamed come true. Especially if the dream included a sweetheart, actual or potential. The dreams were supposed to be truly related next day at the infare—but I question if they always were. Perhaps the magic worked—and in this wise—the person dreamed of took on so new a significance, the difference was quickly felt. But this is a cook book—with reminiscent attachments, not a treatise on psychology.

The table held only the kickshaws—cakes, candy, nuts, syllabub and custard. Wide handsome plates piled high with tempting sliced cake sat up and down the length of it, with glass dishes of gay candies in between. In cold weather wine jelly often took the place of syllabub. There were neither napkins nor service plates—all such things came from the side table, the plates laden with turkey, ham, fried chicken, or broiled, and some sort of jelly or relish. One ate standing, with her escort doing yeoman service as waiter, until her appetite was fully appeased. Hot biscuit, hot egg bread, and light bread—salt rising, freshly sliced—were passed about by deft black servitors. The side tables were under charge of family friends, each specially skilled in helping and serving. Carving, of course, had been done before hand. Occasionally, very occasionally, where a wedding throng ran well into the hundreds, there was barbecue in addition to other meat. In that case it was cut up outside, and sent in upon huge platters. But it was more a feature of infares, held commonly by daylight, than of wedding suppers.

Wedding salad is set forth in its proper chapter, but not the turkey hash that was to some minds the best of all the good eating. It was served for breakfast—there was always a crowd of kinfolk and faraway friends to stay all night—sleeping on pallets all over the floors, even those of parlor or ballroom, after they were deserted. The hash was made from all the left-over turkey—where a dozen birds have been roasted the leavings will be plenty. To it was added the whole array of giblets, cooked the day before, and cut small while still warm. They made heaps of rich gravy to add to that in the turkey pots—no real wedding ever contented itself with cooking solely on a range. Pots, big ones, set beside a log fire out of doors, with a little water in the bottom, and coals underneath and on the lids, turned out turkeys beautifully browned, tender and flavorous, to say nothing of the gravy. It set off the hash as nothing else could—but such setting off was not badly needed. Hash with hot biscuit, strong clear coffee, hot egg bread, and thin-sliced ham, made a breakfast one could depend on, even with a long drive cross-country in prospect.

Harking back to the supper table—syllabub, as nearly as I recall, was made of thick cream lightly reinforced with stiffly beaten white of egg—one egg-white to each pint—sweetened, well flavored with sherry or Madeira wine, then whipped very stiff, and piled in a big bowl, also in goblets to set about the bowl, just as snow balls were set a-row about the stacks and the bride's cake. Flecks of crimson jelly were dropped on the white cream—occasionally, there were crumbled cake, and cut up fruit underneath. Thus it approximated the trifle of the cook books. It had just one drawback—you could not eat it slowly—it went almost to nothing at the agitation of the spoon.