The lemon syrup, usually sold at fifty cents a bottle, may be made much cheaper. Those who use a great quantity of it will find it worth their while to make it. Take about a pound of Havana sugar; boil it in water down to a quart; drop in the white of an egg, to clarify it; strain it; add one quarter of an oz. of tartaric acid, or citric acid; if you do not find it sour enough, after it has stood two or three days and shaken freely, add more of the acid. A few drops of the oil of lemon improves it.
If you wish to clarify sugar and water, you are about to boil, it is well to stir in the white of one egg, while cold; if put in after it boils, the egg is apt to get hardened before it can do any good.
Those who are fond of soda powders will do well to inquire at the apothecaries for the suitable acid and alkali, and buy them by the ounce, or the pound, according to the size of their families. Experience soon teaches the right proportions; and, sweetened with a little sugar or lemon syrup, it is quite as good as what one gives five times as much for, done up in papers. The case is the same with Rochelle powders.
When the stopper of a glass decanter becomes too tight, a cloth wet with hot water and applied to the neck, will cause the glass to expand, so that the stopper may be easily removed.
Glass vessels in a cylindrical form, may be cut in two, by tying around them a worsted thread, thoroughly wet with spirits of turpentine, and then setting fire to the thread. Court plaster is made of thin silk first dipped in dissolved isinglass and dried, then dipped several times in the white of egg and dried.
When plain tortoise-shell combs are defaced, the polish may be renewed by rubbing them with pulverized rotten-stone and oil. The rotten-stone should be sifted through muslin. It looks better to be rubbed on by the hand. The jewellers afterwards polish them by rubbing them with dryrouge powder; but sifted magnesia does just as well—and if the ladies had rouge, perhaps they would,by mistake, put it upon their cheeks, instead of their combs; and thereby spoil their complexions.The best way to cleanse gold is, to wash it in warm suds made of delicate soap, with ten or fifteen drops ofsal-volatilein it. This makes jewels very brilliant.
Straw carpets should be washed in salt and water, and wiped with a dry, coarse towel. They have a strong tendency to turn yellow; and the salt prevents it. Moisture makes them decay soon; therefore they should be kept thoroughly dry.
Rye paste is more adhesive than any other paste; because that grain is very glutinous. It is much improved by adding a little pounded alum, while it is boiling. This makes it almost as strong as glue.
Red ants are among the worst plagues that can infest a house. A lady who had long been troubled with them, assured me she destroyed them in a few days, after the following manner. She placed a dish of cracked shagbarks (of which they are more fond than of anything else) in the closet. They soon gathered upon it in troops. She then put some corrosive sublimate in a cup; ordered the dish to be carried carefully to the fire, and all its contents brushed in; while she swept the few that dropped upon the shelf into the cup, and, with a feather, wet all the cracks from whence they came, with corrosive sublimate. When this had been repeated four or five times, the house was effectually cleared. Too much care cannot be taken of corrosive sublimate, especially when children are about. Many dreadful accidents have happened in consequence of carelessness. Bottles which have contained it should be broken, and buried; and cups should be boiled out in ashes and water. If kept in the house, it should be hung up high, out of reach, with POISON written upon it in large letters.
The neatest way to separate wax from honey-comb is to tie the comb up in a linen or woollen bag; place it in a kettle of cold water, and hang it over the fire. As the water heats, the wax melts, and rises to the surface, while all the impurities remain in the bag. It is well to put a few pebbles in the bag, to keep it from floating.Honey may be separated from the comb, by placing it in the hot sun, or before the fire, with two or three colanders or sieves, each finer than the other, under it.
In the city, I believe, it is better to exchange ashes and grease for soap; but in the country, I am certain, it is good economy to make one's own soap. If you burn wood, you can make your own lye; but the ashes of coal is not worth much. Bore small holes in the bottom of a barrel, place four bricks around, and fill the barrel with ashes. Wet the ashes well, but not enough to drop; let it soak thus three or four days; then pour a gallon of water in every hour or two, for a day or more, and let it drop into a pail or tub beneath. Keep it dripping till the color of the lye shows the strength is exhausted. If your lye is not strong enough, you must fill your barrel with fresh ashes, and let the lye run through it. Some people take a barrel without any bottom, and lay sticks and straw across to prevent the ashes from falling through. To make a barrel of soap, it will require about five or six bushels of ashes, with at least four quarts of unslacked stone lime; if slacked, doable the quantity.
When you have drawn off a part of the lye, put the lime (whether slack or not) into two or three pails of boiling water, and add it to the ashes, and let it drain through.
It is the practice of some people, in making soap, to put the lime near the bottom of the ashes when they first set it tip; but the lime becomes like mortar, and the lye does not run through, so as to get the strength of it, which is very important in making soap, as it contracts the nitrous salts which collect in ashes, and prevents the soap fromcoming,(as the saying is.) Old ashes are very apt to be impregnated with it.
Three pounds of grease should be put into a pailful of lye. The great difficulty in making soap 'come' originates in want of judgment about the strength of the lye. One rule may be safely trusted—If your lye will bear up an egg, or a potato, so that you can see a piece of the surface as big as ninepence, it is just strong enough. If it sink below the top of the lye, it is too weak, and will never make soap; if it is buoyed up half way, the lye is too strong; and that is just as bad. A bit of quick-lime, thrown in while the lye and grease are boiling together, is of service. When the soap becomes thick and ropy, carry it down cellar in pails and empty it into a barrel.
Cold soap is less trouble, because it does not need to boil; the sun does the work of fire. The lye must be prepared and tried in the usual way. The grease must be tried out, and strained from the scraps. Two pounds of grease (instead of three) must be used to a pailful; unless the weather is very sultry, the lye should be hot when put to the grease. It should stand in the sun, and be stirred every day. If it does not begin to look like soap in the course of five or six days, add a little hot lye to it; if this does not help it, try whether it be grease that it wants. Perhaps you will think cold soap wasteful, because the grease must be strained; but if the scraps are boiled thoroughly in strong lye, the grease will all float upon the surface, and nothing be lost.
Cotton wool, wet with sweet oil and paregoric, relieves the ear-ache very soon.
A good quantity of old cheese is the best thing to eat, when distressed by eating too much fruit, or oppressed with any kind of food. Physicians have given it in cases of extreme danger.
Honey and milk is very good for worms; so is strong salt water; likewise powdered sage and molasses taken freely.
For a sudden attack of quincy or croup, bathe the neck with bear's grease, and pour it down the throat. A linen rag soaked in sweet oil, butter, or lard, and sprinkled with yellow Scotch snuff, is said to have performed wonderful cures in cases of croup: it should be placed where the distress is greatest. Goose-grease, or any kind of oily grease, is as good as bear's oil.
Equal parts of camphor, spirits of wine, and hartshorn, well mixed, and rubbed upon the throat, is said to be good for the croup.
Cotton wool and oil are the best things for a burn. A poultice of wheat bran, or rye bran, and vinegar, very soon takes down the inflammation occasioned by a sprain. Brown paper, wet, is healing to a bruise. Dipped in molasses, it is said to take down inflammation.
In case of any scratch, or wound, from which the lockjaw is apprehended, bathe the injured part freely with lye or pearl-ash and water.
A rind of pork bound upon a wound occasioned by a needle, pin, or nail, prevents the lock-jaw. It should be always applied. Spirits of turpentine is good to prevent the lock-jaw. Strong soft-soap, mixed with pulverized chalk, about as thick as batter, put, in a thin cloth or bag, upon the wound, is said to be a preventive to this dangerous disorder. The chalk should be kept moist,till the wound begins to discharge itself; when the patient will find relief.
If you happen to cut yourself slightly while cooking, bind on some fine salt: molasses is likewise good.
Flour boiled thoroughly in milk, so as to make quite a thick porridge, is good in cases of dysentery. A tablespoonful of W.I. rum, a table-spoonful of sugar-baker's molasses, and the same quantity of sweet oil, well simmered together, is likewise good for this disorder; the oil softens the harshness of the other ingredients.
Black or green tea, steeped in boiling milk, seasoned with nutmeg, and best of loaf sugar, is excellent for the dysentery. Cork burnt to charcoal, about as big as a hazel-nut, macerated, and put in a tea-spoonful of brandy, with a little loaf sugar and nutmeg, is very efficacious in cases of dysentery and cholera-morbus. If nutmeg be wanting, peppermint-water may be used. Flannel wet with brandy, powdered with Cayenne pepper, and laid upon the bowels, affords great relief in cases of extreme distress.
Dissolve as much table-salt in keen vinegar, as will ferment and work clear. When the foam is discharged, cork it up in a bottle, and put it away for use. A large spoonful of this, in a gill of boiling water, is very efficacious in cases of dysentery and colic.3
Whortleberries, commonly called huckleberries, dried, are a useful medicine for children. Made into tea, and sweetened with molasses, they are very beneficial, when the system is in a restricted state, and the digestive powers out of order.
Blackberries are extremely useful in cases of dysentery. To eat the berries is very healthy; tea made of the roots and leaves is beneficial; and a syrup made of the berries is still better. Blackberries have sometimes effected a cure when physicians despaired.
Loaf sugar and brandy relieves a sore throat; when very bad, it is good to inhale the steam of scalding hot vinegar through the tube of a tunnel. This should be tried carefully at first, lest the throat be scalded. For children, it should be allowed to cool a little.
A stocking bound on warm from the foot, at night, is good for the sore throat.
An ointment made from the common ground-worms, which boys dig to bait fishes, rubbed on with the hand, is said to be excellent, when the sinews are drawn up by any disease or accident.
A gentleman in Missouri advertises that he had an inveterate cancer upon his nose cured by a strong potash made of the lye of the ashes of red oak bark, boiled down to the consistence of molasses. The cancer was covered with this, and, about an hour after, covered with a plaster of tar. This must be removed in a few days, and, if any protuberances remain in the wound, apply more potash to them, and the plaster again, until they entirely disappear: after which heal the wound with any common soothing salve. I never knew this to be tried.
If a wound bleeds very fast, and there is no physician at hand, cover it with the scrapings of sole-leather, scraped like coarse lint. This stops blood very soon. Always have vinegar, camphor, hartshorn, or something of that kind, in readiness, as the sudden stoppage of blood almost always makes a person faint.
Balm-of-Gilead buds bottled up in N.E. rum, make the best cure in the world for fresh cuts and wounds. Every family should have a bottle of it. The buds should be gathered in a peculiar state; just when they are well swelled, ready to burst into leaves, and well covered with gum. They last but two or three days in this state.
Plantain and house-leek, boiled in cream, and strained before it is put away to cool, makes a very cooling, soothing ointment. Plantain leaves laid upon a wound are cooling and healing.
Half a spoonful ofcitric acid, (which may always be bought of the apothecaries,) stirred in half a tumbler of water, is excellent for the head-ache.
People in general think they must go abroad for vapor-baths; but a very simple one can be made at home. Placestrongsticks across a tub of water, at the boiling point, and sit upon them, entirely enveloped in a blanket, feet and all. The steam from the water will be a vapor-bath. Some people put herbs into the water. Steam-baths are excellent for severe colds, and for some disorders in the bowels. They should not be taken without the advice of an experienced nurse, or physician. Great care should be taken not to renew the cold after; it would be doubly dangerous.
Boiled potatoes are said to cleanse the hands as well as common soap; they preventchopsin the winter season, and keep the skin soft and healthy.
Water-gruel, with three or four onions simmered in it, prepared with a lump of butter, pepper, and salt, eaten just before one goes to bed, is said to be a cure for a hoarse cold. A syrup made of horseradish-root and sugar is excellent for a cold.
Very strong salt and water, when frequently applied, has been known to cure wens.
The following poultice for the throat distemper, has been much approved in England:—The pulp of a roasted apple, mixed with an ounce of tobacco, the whole wet with spirits of wine, or any other high spirits, spread on a linen rag, and bound upon the throat at any period of the disorder.
Nothing is so good to take down swellings, as a soft poultice of stewed white beans, put on in a thin muslin bag, and renewed every hour or two.
The thin white skin, which comes from suet, is excellent to bind upon the feet for chilblains. Rubbing with Castile soap, and afterwards with honey, is likewise highly recommended. But, to cure the chilblains effectually, they must be attended to often, and for a long time.
Always apply diluted laudanum to fresh wounds.
A poultice of elder-blow tea and biscuit is good as a preventive to mortification. The approach of mortification is generally shown by the formation of blisters filled withblood; water blisters are not alarming.
Burnt alum held in the mouth is good for the canker.
The common dark-blue violet makes a slimy tea, which is excellent for the canker. Leaves and blossoms are both good. Those who have families should take some pains to dry these flowers.
When people have a sore mouth, from taking calomel, or any other cause, tea made of low-blackberry leaves is extremely beneficial.
Tea made of slippery elm is good for the piles, and for humors in the blood; to be drank plentifully. Winter evergreen4is considered good for all humors, particularly scrofula. Some call it rheumatism-weed; because a tea made from it is supposed to check that painful disorder.
An ointment of lard, sulphur, and cream-of-tartar, simmered together, is good for the piles.
Elixir proprietatis is a useful family medicine for all cases when the digestive powers are out of order. One ounce of saffron, one ounce of myrrh, and one ounce of aloes. Pulverize them; let the myrrh steep in half a pint of brandy, or N.E. rum, for four days; then add the saffron and aloes; let it stand in the sunshine, or in some warm place, for a fortnight; taking care to shake it well twice a day. At the end of the fortnight, fill up the bottle (a common sized one) with brandy, or N.E. rum, and let it stand a month. It costs six times as much to buy it in small quantities, as it does to make it.
The constant use of malt beer, or malt in any way, is said to be a preservative against fevers.
Black cherry-tree bark, barberry bark, mustard-seed, petty morrel-root, and horseradish, well steeped in cider, are excellent for the jaundice.
Cotton wool and oil are the best things for a burn. When children are burned, it is difficult to make them endure the application of cotton wool. I have known the inflammation of a very bad burn extracted in one night, by the constant application of brandy, vinegar, and water,mixed together. This feels cool and pleasant, and a few drops of paregoric will soon put the little sufferer to sleep. The bathing should be continued till the pain is gone.
A few drops of the oil of Cajput on cotton wool is said to be a great relief to the tooth-ache. It occasions a smart pain for a few seconds, when laid upon the defective tooth. Any apothecary will furnish it ready dropped on cotton wool, for a few cents.
A poultice made of ginger or of common chickweed, that grows about one's door in the country, has given great relief to the tooth-ache, when applied frequently to the cheek.
A spoonful of ashes stirred in cider is good to prevent sickness at the stomach. Physicians frequently order it in cases of cholera-morbus.
When a blister occasioned by a burn breaks, it is said to be a good plan to put wheat flour upon the naked flesh.
The buds of the elder bush, gathered in early spring, and simmered with new butter, or sweet lard, make a very healing and cooling ointment.
Night sweats have been cured, when more powerful remedies had failed, by fasting morning and night, and drinking cold sage tea constantly and freely.
Lard, melted and cooled five or six times in succession, by being poured each time into a fresh pail-full of water, then simmered with sliced onions, and cooled, is said, by old nurses, to make a salve, which is almost infallible in curing inflammations produced by taking cold in wounds.
Vinegar curds, made by pouring vinegar into warm milk, put on warm, and changed pretty frequently, are likewise excellent to subdue inflammation.
Chalk wet with hartshorn is a remedy for the sting of bees; so is likewise table-salt kept moist with water.
Boil castor-oil with an equal quantity of milk, sweeten it with a little sugar, stir it well, and, when cold, give it to children for drink. They will never suspect it is medicine; and will even love the taste of it.
As molasses is often given to children as a gentle physic,it will be useful to know that West India molasses is a gentle cathartic, while sugar-baker's molasses is slightly astringent.
If a fellon or run-round appears to be coming on the finger, you can do nothing better than to soak the finger thoroughly in hot lye. It will be painful, but it will cure a disorder much more painful.
Whiskey, which has had Spanish-flies in soak, is said to be good for ring-worms; but I never knew an instance of its being tried. Unless too strong, or used in great quantities, it cannot, at least, do any harm. Washing the hands frequently in warm vinegar, is good for ring-worms.
When the toe nails have a tendency to turn in, so as to be painful, the nail should always be kept scrapedvery thin, and as near the flesh as possible. As soon as the corner of the nail can be raised up out of the flesh, it should be kept from again entering, by putting a tuft of fine lint under it.
As this book may fall into the hands of those who cannot speedily obtain a physician, it is worth while to mention what is best to be done for the bite of a rattlesnake:—Cut the flesh out, around the bite,instantly; that the poison may not have time to circulate in the blood. If caustic is at hand, put it upon the raw flesh; if not, the next best thing is to fill the wound with salt—renewing it occasionally. Take a dose of sweet oil and spirits of turpentine, to defend the stomach. If the whole limb swell, bathe it in salt and vinegar freely. It is well to physic the system thoroughly, before returning to usual diet.
Gruel is very easily made. Have a pint of water boiling in a skillet; stir up three or four large spoonfuls of nicely sifted oat-meal, rye, or Indian, in cold water. Pour it into the skillet while the water boils. Let it boil eight or ten minutes. Throw in a large handful of raisins to boil, if the patient is well enough to bear them. When put in a bowl, add a little salt, white sugar, and nutmeg.
This is at once food and medicine. Some people have very great faith in its efficacy in cases of chronic dysentery. It is made thus: Boil a pint of new milk; beat four new-laid eggs to a light froth, and pour in while the milk boils; stir them together thoroughly, but do not let them boil; sweeten it with the best of loaf sugar, and grate in a whole nutmeg; add a little salt, if you like it. Drink half of it while it is warm, and the other half in two hours.
Put about a pint of water in a skillet to boil; stir up a large spoonful of arrow-root powder in a cup of water; pour it into the skillet while the water is boiling; let them boil together three or four minutes. Season it with nutmeg and loaf sugar. This is very light food for an invalid. When the system is in a relaxed state, two tea-spoonfuls of brandy may be put in. Milk and loaf sugar boiled, and a spoonful of fine flour, well mixed with a little cold water, poured in while the milk is boiling, is light food in cases of similar diseases.
Boil four feet in a gallon of water, till it is reduced to a quart. Strain it, and let it stand, till it is quite cool. Skim off the fat, and add to the jelly one pint of wine, half a pound of sugar, the whites of six eggs, and the juice of four large lemons; boil all these materials together eight or ten minutes. Then strain into the glasses, or jars, in which you intend to keep it. Some lay a few bits of the lemon-peel at the bottom, and let it be strained upon them.
Wash it two or three times, soak it five or six hours; simmer it in the same water with bits of fresh lemon-peeluntil it becomes quite clear; then put in lemon juice, wine and loaf sugar.
The sago should be soaked in cold water an hour, and washed thoroughly; simmered with lemon-peel and a few cloves. Add wine and loaf sugar when nearly done; and let it all boil together a few minutes.
Beef tea, for the sick, is made by broiling a tender steak nicely, seasoning it with pepper and salt, cutting it up, and pouring water over it, not quite boiling. Put in a little water at a time, and let it stand to soak the goodness out.
Wine whey is a cooling and safe drink in fevers. Set half a pint of sweet milk at the fire, pour in one glass of wine, and let it remain perfectly still, till it curdles; when the curds settle, strain it, and let it cool. It should not get more than blood-warm. A spoonful of rennet-water hastens the operation. Made palatable with loaf sugar and nutmeg, if the patient can bear it.
This is given as sustenance when the stomach is too weak to bear broth, &c. It may be made thus,—Pour boiling water on roasted apples; let them stand three hours, then strain and sweeten lightly:—Or it may be made thus,—Peel and slice tart apples, add some sugar and lemon-peel; then pour some boiling water over the whole, and let it stand covered by the fire, more than an hour.
Boil new milk; stir flour thoroughly into some cold milk in a bowl, and pour it into the kettle while the milkis boiling: let it all boil six or eight minutes. Some people like it thicker than others; I should think three large spoonfuls of flour to a quart of milk was about right. It should always be seasoned with salt; and if the patient likes, loaf sugar and nutmeg may be put in. In cases of fever, little salt or spice should be put into any nourishment; but in cases of dysentery, salt and nutmeg may be used freely: in such cases too, more flour should be put in porridge, and it should be boiled very thoroughly indeed.
Stew them very gently in a small quantity of water, till the stones slip out. Physicians consider them safe nourishment in fevers.
Parsnips should be kept down cellar, covered up in sand, entirely excluded from the air. They are good only in the spring.
Cabbages put into a hole in the ground will keep well during the winter, and be hard, fresh, and sweet, in the spring. Many farmers keep potatoes in the same way.
Onions should be kept very dry, and never carried into the cellar except in severe weather, when there is danger of their freezing. By no means let them be in the cellar after March; they will sprout and spoil. Potatoes should likewise be carefully looked to in the spring, and the sprouts broken off. The cellar is the best place for them, because they are injured by wilting; but sprout them carefully, if you want to keep them. They never sprout but three times; therefore, after you have sprouted them three times, they will trouble you no more.
Squashes should never be kept down cellar when it ispossible to prevent it. Dampness injures them. If intense cold makes it necessary to put them there, bring them up as soon as possible, and keep them in some dry, warm place.
Cabbages need to be boiled an hour; beets an hour and a half. The lower part of a squash should be boiled half an hour; the neck pieces fifteen or twenty minutes longer. Parsnips should boil an hour, or an hour and a quarter, according to size. New potatoes should boil fifteen or twenty minutes; three quarters of an hour, or an hour, is not too much for large, old potatoes; common-sized ones, half an hour. In the spring, it is a good plan to cut off a slice from the seed end of potatoes before you cook them. The seed end is opposite to that which grew upon the vine; the place where the vine was broken off may be easily distinguished. By a provision of nature, the seed end becomes watery in the spring; and, unless cut off, it is apt to injure the potato. If you wish to have potatoes mealy, do not let them stop boiling for an instant; and when they are done, turn the water off, and let them steam for ten or twelve minutes over the fire. See they don't stay long enough to burn to the kettle. In Canada, they cut the skin all off, and put them in pans, to be cooked over a stove, by steam. Those who have eaten them, say they are mealy and white, looking like large snow-balls when brought upon the table.
Potatoes boiled and mashed while hot, are good to use in making short cakes and puddings; they save flour, and less shortening is necessary.
It is said that a bit of unslacked lime, about as big as a robin's egg, thrown among old, watery potatoes, while they are boiling, will tend to make them mealy. I never saw the experiment tried.
Asparagus should be boiled fifteen or twenty minutes; half an hour, if old.
Green peas should be boiled from twenty minutes to sixty, according to their age; string beans the same. Corn should be boiled from twenty minutes to forty, according to age; dandelions half an hour, or three quarters,according to age. Dandelions are very much improved by cultivation. If cut off, without injuring the root, they will spring up again, fresh and tender, till late in the season.
Beet-tops should be boiled twenty minutes; and spinage three or four minutes. Put in no green vegetables till the water boils, if you would keep all their sweetness.
When green peas have become old and yellow, they may be made tender and green by sprinkling in a pinch or two of pearlash, while they are boiling. Pearlash has the same effect upon all summer vegetables, rendered tough by being too old. If your well-water is very hard, it is always an advantage to use a little pearlash in cooking.
Tomatoes should be skinned by pouring boiling water over them. After they are skinned, they should be stewed half an hour, in tin, with a little salt, a small bit of butter, and a spoonful of water, to keep them from burning. This is a delicious vegetable. It is easily cultivated, and yields a most abundant crop. Some people pluck them green, and pickle them.
The best sort of catsup is made from tomatoes. The vegetables should be squeezed up in the hand, salt put to them, and set by for twenty-four hours. After being passed through a sieve, cloves, allspice, pepper, mace, garlic, and whole mustard-seed should be added. It should be boiled down one third, and bottled after it is cool. No liquid is necessary, as the tomatoes are very juicy. A good deal of salt and spice is necessary to keep the catsup well. It is delicious with roast meat; and a cupful adds much to the richness of soup and chowder. The garlic should be taken out before it is bottled.
Celery should be kept in the cellar, the roots covered with tan, to keep them moist.
Green squashes that are turning yellow, and striped squashes, are more uniformly sweet and mealy than any other kind.
If the tops of lettuce be cut off when it is becoming too old for use, it will grow up again fresh and tender, and may thus be kept good through the summer.
It is a good plan to boil onions in milk and water; it diminishes the strong taste of that vegetable. It is an excellent way of serving up onions, to chop them after they are boiled, and put them in a stewpan, with a little milk, butter, salt, and pepper, and let them stew about fifteen minutes. This gives them a fine flavor, and they can be served up very hot.
All herbs should be carefully kept from the air. Herb tea, to do any good, should be madevery strong.
Herbs should be gathered while in blossom. If left till they have gone to seed, the strength goes into the seed. Those who have a little patch of ground, will do well to raise the most important herbs; and those who have not, will do well to get them in quantities from some friend in the country; for apothecaries make very great profit upon them.
Sage is very useful both as a medicine, for the headache—when made into tea—and for all kinds of stuffing, when dried and rubbed into powder. It should be kept tight from the air.
Summer-savory is excellent to season soup, broth, and sausages. As a medicine, it relieves the cholic. Pennyroyal and tansy are good for the same medicinal purpose.
Green wormwood bruised is excellent for a fresh wound of any kind. In winter, when wormwood is dry, it is necessary to soften it in warm vinegar, or spirit, before it is bruised, and applied to the wound.
Hyssop tea is good for sudden colds, and disorders on the lungs. It is necessary to be very careful about exposure after taking it; it is peculiarly opening to the pores.
Tea made of colt's-foot and flax-seed, sweetened with honey, is a cure for inveterate coughs. Consumptions havebeen prevented by it. It should be drank when going to bed; though it does good to drink it at any time. Hoarhound is useful in consumptive complaints.
Motherwort tea is very quieting to the nerves. Students, and people troubled with wakefulness, find it useful.
Thoroughwort is excellent for dyspepsy, and every disorder occasioned by indigestion. If the stomach be foul, it operates like a gentle emetic.
Sweet-balm tea is cooling when one is in a feverish state.
Catnip, particularly the blossoms, made into tea, is good to prevent a threatened fever. It produces a fine perspiration. It should be taken in bed, and the patient kept warm.
Housekeepers should always dry leaves of the burdock and horseradish. Burdocks warmed in vinegar, with the hard, stalky parts cut out, are very soothing, applied to the feet; they produce a sweet and gentle perspiration. Horseradish is more powerful. It is excellent in cases of the ague, placed on the part affected. Warmed in vinegar, and clapped.
Succory is a very valuable herb. The tea, sweetened with molasses, is good for the piles. It is a gentle and healthy physic, a preventive of dyspepsy, humors, inflammation, and all the evils resulting from a restricted state of the system.
Elder-blow tea has a similar effect. It is cool and soothing, and peculiarly efficacious either for babes or grown people, when the digestive powers are out of order.
Lungwort, maiden-hair, hyssop, elecampane and hoarhound steeped together, is an almost certain cure for a cough. A wine-glass full to be taken when going to bed.
Few people know how to keep the flavor of sweet-marjoram; the best of all herbs for broth and stuffing. It should be gathered in bud or blossom, and dried in a tin-kitchen at a moderate distance from the fire; when dry, it should be immediately rubbed, sifted, and corked up in a bottle carefully.
English-mallows steeped in milk is good for the dysentery.
A few general rules are necessary to be observed in coloring. The materials should be perfectly clean; soap should be rinsed out in soft water; the article should be entirely wetted, or it will spot; light colors should be steeped in brass, tin, or earthen; and if set at all, should be set with alum. Dark colors should be boiled in iron, and set with copperas. Too much copperas rots the thread.
The apothecaries and hatters keep a compound of vitriol and indigo, commonly called 'blue composition.' An ounce vial full may be bought for nine-pence. It colors a fine blue. It is an economical plan to use it for old silk linings, ribbons, &c. The original color should be boiled out, and the material thoroughly rinsed in soft water, so that no soap may remain in it; for soap ruins the dye. Twelve or sixteen drops of the blue composition, poured into a quart bowl full of warm soft water, stirred, (and strained, if any settlings are perceptible,) will color a great many articles. If you wish a deep blue, pour in more of the compound. Cotton must not be colored; the vitriol destroys it; if the material you wish to color has cotton threads in it, it will be ruined. After the things are thoroughly dried, they should be washed in cool suds, and dried again; this prevents any bad effects from the vitriol; if shut up from the air without being washed, there is danger of the texture being destroyed. If you wish to color green, have your cloth free as possible from the old color, clean, and rinsed, and, in the first place, color it a deep yellow. Fustic boiled in soft water makes the strongest and brightest yellow dye; but saffron, barberry bush, peach leaves, or onion skins, will answer pretty well. Next take a bowl full of strong yellow dye, and pour in a great spoonful or more of the blue composition. Stir it up well with a clean stick, and dip the articles you have already colored yellow into it, and they will take a lively grass green. This is a good plan for old bombazet curtains, dessert cloths,old flannel for covering a desk, &c; it is likewise a handsome color for ribbons.
Balm blossoms, steeped in water, color a pretty rose-color. This answers very well for the linings of children's bonnets, for ribbons, &c. It fades in the course of one season; but it is very little trouble to recolor with it. It merely requires to be steeped and strained. Perhaps a small piece of alum might serve to set the color, in some degree. In earthen or tin.
Saffron, steeped in earthen and strained, colors a fine straw color. It makes a delicate or deep shade according to the strength of the tea. The dry outside skins of onions, steeped in scalding water and strained, color a yellow very much like 'bird of paradise' color. Peach leaves, or bark scraped from the barberry bush, colors a common bright yellow. In all these cases, a little piece of alum does no harm, and may help to fix the color. Ribbons, gauze handkerchiefs, &c. are colored well in this way, especially if they be stiffened by a bit of gum-Arabic, dropped in while the stuff is steeping.
The purple paper, which comes on loaf sugar, boiled in cider, or vinegar, with a small bit of alum, makes a fine purple slate color. Done in iron.
White maple bark makes a good light-brown slate color. This should be boiled in water, set with alum. The color is reckoned better when boiled in brass, instead of iron.
The purple slate and the brown slate are suitable colors for stockings; and it is an economical plan, after they have been mended and cut down, so that they will no longer look decent, to color old stockings, and make them up for children.
A pailful of lye, with a piece of copperas half as big as a hen's egg boiled in it, will color a fine nankin color, which will never wash out. This is very useful for the linings of bed-quilts, comforters, &c. Old faded gowns, colored in this way, may be made into good petticoats. Cheap cotton cloth may be colored to advantage for petticoats, and pelisses for little girls.
A very beautiful nankin color may likewise be obtained from birch-bark, set with alum. The bark should be covered with water, and boiled thoroughly in brass or tin. A bit of alum half as big as a hen's egg is sufficient. If copperas be used instead of alum, slate color will be produced.
Tea-grounds boiled in iron, and set with copperas, make a very good slate color.
Log-wood and cider, in iron, set with copperas, makes a good black. Rusty nails, or any rusty iron, boiled in vinegar, with a small bit of copperas, makes a good black,—black ink-powder done in the same way answers the same purpose.
When you merely want to corn meat, you have nothing to do but to rub in salt plentifully, and let it set in the cellar a day or two. If you have provided more meat than you can use while it is good, it is well to corn it in season to save it. In summer, it will not keep well more than a day and a half; if you are compelled to keep it longer, be sure and rub in more salt, and keep it carefully covered from cellar-flies. In winter, there is no difficulty in keeping a piece of corned beef a fortnight or more. Some people corn meat by throwing it into their beef barrel for a few days; but this method does not make it so sweet. A little salt-petre rubbed in before you apply the common salt, makes the meat tender; but in summer it is not well to use it, because it prevents the other salt from impregnating; and the meat does not keep as well.
If you wish to salt fat pork, scald coarse salt in water and skim it, till the salt will no longer melt in the water. Pack your pork down in tight layers; salt every layer; when the brine is cool, cover the pork with it, and keep a heavy stone on the top to keep the pork under brine. Look to it once in a while, for the first few weeks, and ifthe salt has all melted, throw in more. This brine, scalded and skimmed every time it is used, will continue good twenty years. The rind of the pork should be packed towards the edge of the barrel.
It is good economy to salt your own beef as well as pork. Six pounds of coarse salt, eight ounces of brown sugar, a pint of molasses, and eight ounces of salt-petre, are enough to boil in four gallons of water. Skim it clean while boiling. Put it to the beef cold; have enough to cover it; and be careful your beef never floats on the top. If it does not smell perfectly sweet, throw in more salt; if a scum rises upon it, scald and skim it again, and pour it on the beef when cold.
Legs of mutton are very good, cured in the same way as ham. Six pounds of salt, eight ounces of salt-petre, and five pints of molasses, will make pickle enough for one hundred weight. Small legs should be kept in pickle twelve or fifteen days; if large, four or five weeks are not too much. They should be hung up a day or two to dry, before they are smoked. Lay them in the oven, on crossed sticks, and make a fire at the entrance. Cobs, walnut-bark, or walnut-chips, are the best to use for smoking, on account of the sweet taste they give the meat. The smallest pieces should be smoked forty-eight hours, and large legs four or five days. Some people prefer the mutton boiled as soon as it is taken from the pickle, before it is smoked; others hang it up till it gets dry thoroughly, and eat it in thin slices, like hung beef. When legs of meat are put in pickle, the thickest part of the leg should be placed uppermost, that is, standing upright, the same as the creature stood when living. The same rule should be observed when they are hung up to dry; it is essential in order to keep in the juices of the meat. Meat should be turned over once or twice during the process of smoking.
The old-fashioned way for curing hams is to rub them with salt very thoroughly, and let them lay twenty-four hours. To each ham allow two ounces of salt-petre, one quart of common salt and one quart of molasses. First baste them with molasses; next rub in the salt-petre; and,last of all, the common salt. They must be carefully turned and rubbed every day for six weeks; then hang them in a chimney, or smoke-house, four weeks.
They should be well covered up in paper bags, and put in a chest, or barrel, with layers of ashes, or charcoal, between. When you take out a ham to cut for use, be sure and put it away in a dark place, well covered up; especially in summer.
Some very experienced epicures and cooks, think the old-fashioned way of preparing bacon is troublesome and useless. They say that legs of pork placed upright in pickle, for four or five weeks, are just as nice as those rubbed with so much care. The pickle for pork and hung beef, should be stronger than for legs of mutton. Eight pounds of salt, ten ounces of salt-petre and five pints of molasses is enough for one hundred weight of meat; water enough to cover the meat well—probably, four or five gallons. Any one can prepare bacon, or dried beef, very easily, in a common oven, according to the above directions. The same pickle that answers for bacon is proper for neat's tongues. Pigs' tongues are very nice, prepared in the same way as neat's tongues; an abundance of them are sold for rein-deer's tongues, and, under that name, considered a wonderful luxury.
Neat's tongue should be boiled full three hours. If it has been in salt long, it is well to soak it over night in cold water. Put it in to boil when the water is cold. If you boil it in a small pot, it is well to change the water, when it has boiled an hour and a half; the fresh water should boil before the half-cooked tongue is put in again. It is nicer for being kept in a cool place a day or two after being boiled. Nearly the same rules apply to salt beef. A six pound piece of corned beef should boil full three hours; and salt beef should be boiled four hours.
The saltier meat is, the longer it should be boiled. If very salt, it is well to put it in soak over night; change the water while cooking; and observe the same rules as in boiling tongue. If it is intended to be eaten when cold, it is a good plan to put it between clean boards, and press itdown with heavy weights for a day or two. A small leg of bacon should be boiled three hours; ten pounds four hours; twelve pounds five hours. All meat should boil moderately; furious boiling injures the flavor.
Buffalo's tongue should soak a day and a night, and boil as much as six hours.
If people wish to be economical, they should take some pains to ascertain what are the cheapest pieces of meat to buy; not merely those which are cheapest in price, but those which go farthest when cooked. That part of mutton called the rack, which consists of the neck, and a few of the rib bones below, is cheap food. It is not more than four or five cents a pound; and four pounds will make a dinner for six people. The neck, cut into pieces, and boiled slowly an hour and a quarter, in little more than water enough to cover it, makes very nice broth. A great spoonful of rice should be washed and thrown in with the meat. About twenty minutes before it is done, put in a little thickening, and season with salt, pepper, and sifted summer-savory, or sage. The bones below the neck, broiled, make a good mutton chop. If your family be small, a rack of mutton will make you two dinners,—broth once, and mutton chop with a few slices of salt pork, for another; if your family consist of six or seven, you can have two dishes for a dinner. If you boil the whole rack for broth, there will be some left for mince meat.
Liver is usually much despised; but when well cooked, it is very palatable; and it is the cheapest of all animal food. Veal liver is by some considered the best. Veal liver is usually two cents a pound; beef liver is one cent. After you have fried a few slices of salt pork, put the liver in while the fat is very hot, and cook it through thoroughly.If you doubt whether it be done, cut into a slice, and see whether it has turned entirely brown, without any red stripe in the middle. Season it with pepper and salt, and butter, if you live on a farm, and have butter in plenty. It should not be cooked on furiously hot coals, as it is very apt to scorch. Sprinkle in a little flour, stir it, and pour in boiling water to make gravy, just as you would for fried meat. Some think liver is better dipped in sifted Indian meal before it is fried. It is good broiled and buttered like a steak. It should be cut into slices about as thick as are cut for steaks.
The heart, liver, &c. of a pig is good fried; so is that of a lamb. The latter is commonly called lamb-fry; and a dinner may be bought for six or eight cents. Be sure and ask for the sweet-bread; for butchers are extremely apt to reserve it for their own use; and therefore lamb-fry is almost always sold without it. Fry five or six slices of salt pork; after it is taken out, put in your lamb-fry while the fat is hot. Do it thoroughly; but be careful the fire is not too furious, as it is apt to scorch. Take a large handful of parsley, see that it is washed clean, cut it up pretty fine; then pour a little boiling water into the fat in which your dinner has been fried, and let the parsley cook in it a minute or two; then take it out in a spoon, and lay it over your slices of meat. Some people, who like thick gravies, shake in a little flour into the spider, before pouring in the boiling water.
Bones from which roasting pieces have been cut, may be bought in the market for ten or twelve cents, from which a very rich soup may be made, besides skimming off fat for shortening. If the bones left from the rump be bought, they will be found full of marrow, and will give more than a pint of good shortening, without injuring the richness of the soup. The richest piece of beef for a soup is the leg and the shin of beef; the leg is on the hind quarter, and the shin is on the fore quarter. The leg rand, that is, the thick part of the leg above the bony parts, is very nice for mince pies. Some people have an objection to these parts of beef, thinking they must be stringy; but, if boiledvery tender,the sinews are not perceived, and add, in fact, to the richness of a soup.
The thick part of a thin flank is the most profitable part in the whole ox to buy. It is not so handsome in appearance as some other pieces, but it is thick meat, with very little bone, and is usually two cents less in the pound than more fashionable pieces. It is good for roasting, and particularly for corning and salting. The navel end of the brisket is one of the best pieces for salting or corning, and is very good for roasting.
The rattle rand is the very best piece for corning, or salting.
A bullock's heart is very profitable to use as a steak. Broiled just like beef. There are usually five pounds in a heart, and it can be bought for twenty-five cents. Some people stuff and roast it.
The chuck, between the neck and the shoulder, is a very good piece for roasting,—for steaks, or for salting. Indeed, it is good for almost anything; and it is cheap, being from four to five cents a pound.
The richest, tenderest, and most delicate piece of beef for roasting, or for steak, is the rump and the last cut of the sirloin. It is peculiarly appropriate for an invalid, as it is lighter food than any other beef.
But if economy be consulted instead of luxury, the round will be bought in preference to the rump. It is heartier food, and, of course, less can be eaten; and it is cheaper in price.
The shoulder of veal is the most economical for roasting or boiling. It is always cheap, let veal bear what price it may. Two dinners may be made from it; the shoulder roasted, and the knuckle cut off to be boiled with a bit of pork and greens, or to be made into soup.
The breast of veal is a favorite piece, and is sold high.
The hind-quarter of veal and the loin make two good roasting pieces. The leg is usually stuffed. The line has the kidney upon it; the fore-quarter has the brisket on it. This is a sweet and delicate morsel; for this reason some people prefer the fore-quarter to any other part.