96 On Cottage Economy and Cookery. 



with pepper and salt ; add a piece of butter, lard, or kitchen- 

 stuff, and put the whole into the pot to warm, taking care to stir 

 it until ready. This may be eaten without bread, and four to 

 five pounds of good potatoes, together with a good quantity of 

 greens (not cabbage) will be found a savoury mess for the 

 family, at the expense of not more than a penny per head, even if 

 the peasant has not a garden to grow his own vegetables. 



If, instead of greens, a couple of salt herrings, or three or four 

 pilchards boiled, stripped of their heads, fins, and tail, and 

 shredded into small pieces, be mixed up and dressed in the same 

 manner, either with or without the onion, the mess will be found 

 equally good ; and if you have fat enough to fry it in the pan, or 

 if you take the trouble to brown it before the fire, it will be still 

 better. It may also be observed that salt-fish of any sort, if 

 beaten up with potatoes when boiled, goes farther than when 

 eaten separately. 



Potatoes may also be 7nade into cakes, and baked in a few 

 minutes over the fire upon a flat iron plate, having short legs upon 

 which it is supported, and commonly known among the Irish 

 peasantry as " a griddle." It is simply done by mashing the boiled 

 potatoes into flour with the rolling-pin, and binding them together 

 either with a small quantity of milk, or a little fat, and flavouring 

 them with a little salt, then rolling the paste out into cakes of a 

 quarter of an inch thick, placing them upon the hot griddle, and 

 turning them when done on one side. Or they may be made in 

 the same manner, though more like bread, by pouring upon the 

 mashed potatoes a moderate quantity of batter made either of 

 wheaten flour or oatmeal and milk, mixing it thoroughly with the 

 paste, and pricking the cakes with a fork to render them light. 



On the jnode of making bread we offer no instruction, except 

 that, when the cottager has got an oven, it should be baked at 

 home, and made of household flour ; but this observation may be 

 made, that in former days our forefathers were accustomed to eat 

 rye and barley bread ; and throughout the whole of the north of 

 Germany and Poland, though producing abundant crops of wheat, 

 no other kind of bread than that made from rye is generally eaten, 

 yet no peasantry in Europe are more strong and healthy. The 

 appearance of the bread is not indeed so inviting as that of wheat, 

 but the flavour is extremely pleasant, the quality is more nutri- 

 tious than that made from barley. Now, it is usually calcu- 

 lated that a man, his wife, and two children eat from three to 

 four pounds of bread daily. The price of the quartern loaf of 

 household wheaten bread is at present eight-jjence ; but that of 

 rye can be made for Jive-pence ; and, if this were used, it would 

 occasion a saving of about eighteen-pcnce in the poor man's 

 weekly wages. 



