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Classic
Cook Books
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page 359
Never place a range or cooking stove opposite a door or window if it can be
avoided, as any draft will prevent the oven from baking well.
A necessity in the kitchen, because a great protection against clothes taking
fire, is a large kitchen apron made full length with bib, and sleeves if wished,
the skirt to button close around the dress-skirt. A wooden mat (made by laying
down six pieces of lath eleven inches long, one inch wide, and an inch apart,
and nailing across these, at right angles, six other similar pieces, about the
same distance apart) is a great protection to the kitchen table, which should be
of ash. Hot kettles and pans from the stove may be set on this without danger,
as the construction of the mat secures a circulation of air under it.
There is an old and true saying that "a woman can throw out with a spoon faster
than a man can throw in with a shovel." In cooking meats, for instance, unless
watched, the cook will throw out the water without letting it cool to take off
the fat, or scrape the dripping-pan into the swill-pail. This grease is useful
in many ways. Bits of meat are thrown out which would make good hashed meat or
hash; the flour is sifted in a wasteful manner, or the bread-pan left with dough
sticking to it; pie-crust is left and laid by to sour, instead of making a few
tarts for tea; cake batter is thrown out because but little is left; cold
puddings are considered good for nothing, when often they can be steamed for the
next day, or, as in case of rice, made over in other forms; vegetables are
thrown away that would warm for breakfast nicely; dish-towels are thrown down
where mice can destroy them; soap is left in water to dissolve, or more used
than is necessary; the scrub-brush is left in the water, pails scorched by the
stove, tubs and barrels left in the sun to dry and fall apart, chamber-pails
allowed to rust, tins not dried, and iron-ware rusted; nice knives are used for
cooking in the kitchen, silver spoons used to scrape kettles, or forks to toast
bread; cream is allowed to mold and spoil, mustard to dry in the pot, and
vinegar to corrode the casters; tea, roasted coffee, pepper, and spices to stand
open and lose their strength; the molasses jug loses the cork and the flies take
possession; vinegar is drawn in a basin and allowed to stand until both basin
and vinegar are spoiled; sugar is spilled from the barrel, coffee from the sack,
and tea from the chest; different sauces are made too sweet, and both sauce and
sugar are wasted; dried fruit has not been taken care of in season, and becomes
wormy; the vinegar on pickles loses strength or leaks out, and the pickles
become soft; potatoes in the cellar grow, and the sprouts are not removed until
they become worthless; apples decay for want of looking over; pork spoils for
want of salt, and beef because the brine wants scalding; hams become tainted or
filled with vermin, for want of the right protection; dried beef becomes so hard
it can't be cut; cheese molds and is eaten by mice or vermin; bones are burnt
that will make soup; ashes are thrown out carelessly, endangering the premises,
and wasting
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Classic
Cook Books
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