CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



is oatmeal porridge, the oatmeal being rougher in 

 the grain than is generally used in England. The 

 fault commonly committed in making this ex- 

 cellent and wholesome article of food is in not 

 boiling it sufficiently. Three-quarters of an hour's 

 boiling is required to break down the meal, anc 

 render it properly digestible. Where the water is 

 ' hard,' a very small bit of washing-soda accelerates 

 the process ; but this requires to be cautiously used. 

 Churn or sweet milk, or a mixture of the two, is 

 used along with the porridge. Among the middle 

 classes, the plate of porridge is often followed by 

 a cup of coffee, which is calculated to correct the 

 sluggishness which some persons feel after taking 

 porridge. 



Coffee to breakfast is now the article most com- 

 monly used by the middle classes in this country. 

 It is preferable to tea when the latter is taken in 

 the evening. Strong tea twice daily, for nervous 

 persons especially, amounts to a species of dissipa- 

 tion, and produces upon some very unpleasant 

 effects. The stimulus from taking coffee is more 

 gentle and diffused, and is quite as long continued. 

 To prepare really good coffee, is found by many 

 housewives to be rather a difficult matter, and yet 

 it is very easy, if a few simple directions are 

 attended to. The object in view is to get the 

 coffee to impart to the water poured on it the 

 slightly bitter and aromatic principles which it 

 contains, and to lose none of these. This is best 

 done by pouring on the coffee in the coffee-pot 

 boiling water, accurately closing the cover of the 

 coffee-pot, and fixing a nozzle on its spout, and 

 then placing the pot on the fire, and just allowing 

 the water to boil. The moment steam appears, 

 the coffee is made, and the pot must be taken off 

 the fire. Coffee made in this way has the one 

 disadvantage, that it is not so clear as could be 

 wished. To obviate this defect, the white of an 

 egg or isinglass is sometimes used, but this 

 is troublesome ; and a coffee-pot, with a good 

 percolator, though a little more expensive at 

 first, is on the whole, the best arrangement. 

 A fourth of foreign chicory imparts body and 

 improves the quality of the coffee ; and if these 

 have not been got within a day or two after being 

 roasted, they should be heated together over the 

 fire in an iron pot before being used. Mr Soyer 

 made the important observation, that coffee 

 thus heated, and tea heated in the teapot for ten 

 minutes before infusing, are both in consequence 

 made to part with their aromatic properties more 

 readily. For breakfast, one-third of boiled milk 

 should be used with the coffee, the latter of course 

 being made proportionately strong ; or cream 

 alone, or with the milk, may be used when the 

 coffee is wished richer. In infusing Tea, besides 

 slightly heating it as mentioned, most house- 

 wives are aware that where the water is hard, a 

 small quantity of carbonate of soda assists the 

 process. 



As relishes to the tea or coffee, the best are 

 good salt, red, kippered, or Nova Scotia herrings, 

 a Finnan haddock, an egg, a bit of fried smoked 

 bacon, tongue, &c. In June and the two or 

 three following months, one of the great annual 

 treats of this kind enjoyed by the population in 



768 



the towns in the west of Scotland is the delicious 

 Loch Fyne herrings, very slightly salted. Salt 

 herrings generally require to be steeped in cold 

 water for a night, and are then used boiled, 

 or ' reisted ' that is, hung up and dried, and done 

 on the gridiron. Among the most delicate of 

 breakfast-dishes, when in season, are the 'rizzard' 

 whitings or small haddocks. Rizzaring a haddock 

 means simply cleaning it, slightly salting, and 

 hanging it up to dry for a day or two. 



Dinner in this country is generally considered 

 the most important meal. In England, the work- 

 man must have for it his bit of roast-meat or stew, 

 with pudding, pie, or dumpling ; while in Scotland 

 he rarely tastes roasts or dumplings, and is content 

 for the most part with ' broth and meat.' Perhaps 

 each could, for the improvement of this meal, with 

 advantage borrow some hints from the other. The 

 Englishman would find it advantageous to have 

 introduced at his table the wholesome vegetable 

 soups so largely used in Scotland, while the 

 Scotchman would experience both variety and 

 satisfaction from having more of the savoury dishes 

 in which his English neighbour delights. 



The Scotch working-man almost invariably 

 takes his soup first, and eats afterwards a portion 

 of the meat with which it has been made. When 

 it is wished not to have the qualities of the meat 

 too much diffused in the soup, it is sometimes 

 taken out for an hour or so. Where mutton is 

 used, instead of returning it to the soup, it may be 

 sprinkled with a little pepper and salt, slightly 

 browned before the fire, and served with 

 onion sauce, which greatly improves the quali- 

 ties of the mutton. As has been already men- 

 tioned, when it is intended that the meat should 

 be eaten without the soup, instead of using cold 

 water, it should at once be immersed in boiling 

 water, so as to coagulate the outer layer of 

 albumen, and retain its juices ; and then boil with 

 closed cover very gently whatever time may be 

 required, a quarter of an hour being allowed for 

 each pound of meat. The water in which the 

 meat has been boiled can be used next day as a 

 stock for making broth or soup. 



Killing a pig gives the means, to a cottager's 

 or workman's family, of having several nice 

 luxuries, such as the blood and white puddings, 

 the dressed ' pluck,' the salted ' pig's cheek,' eaten 

 with greens, the feet salted slightly, and made into 

 delicate soup with vegetables, tasty pork sausages, 

 rich pork and mince pie, and delicious spare-rib 

 roasted. The suet should be carefully ' rinded' 

 by melting off the lard in a pot placed in boiling 

 water, adding a little salt, and then should be put 

 in pots covered with bladder, or in bladders, t 

 exclude the air. It may be used, when required 

 for pie-crust, &c. 



The Pot au Feu is an adjunct of nearly ev< 

 house in France, and in some other foreign 

 countries as well ; it is a receptacle for all sorts 

 of scraps, which are kept constantly simmering 

 by the side of the fire ; and such pieces of meat 

 or fragments of vegetables as cannot otherwise 

 be used, are thrown into the pot, in order to con- 

 tribute to the soup, which by this means can 

 always be obtained. 



