SOUPS. 231 



minutes. Drain it very thoroughly, and serve with butter- 

 sauce, or bits of butter laid under and over it. This vegeta- 

 ble requires to be freshly gathered when it goes to the pot. 

 Keep the pot while boiling, for the most part, uncovered. 



SOAP FOR WASHING. Two pounds of hard soap, 

 four quarts of rain-water ; let it dissolve ; add one quarter of 

 a pound of saleratus ; let it almost boil, then add one tea- 

 spoonful of tartaric acid, one teaspoonful of arrowroot ; let it 

 all boil twenty minutes. Pour it out into a baking-pan ; let 

 it stand all day and over night, then slice it, and put it in 

 the oven to dry. This soap makes flannels look handsomely. 



OX-GALL SOAP. 



Take one quart of ox-gall, and slice into it two pounds of 

 best yellow soap (Alexander Dickinson's Extra No. 1, man- 

 ufactured at Cambridge, Mass., is the kind I have used). Set 

 it on the range and let it simmer until the soap is dissolved 

 or melted ; add a large spoonful of table-salt, and pour it into 

 flat pans ; cut it into bars when cold, and dry it ; it will be- 

 come very hard and keep for years. A very little of it will 

 wash nice prints, de laines, &c., and it is excellent to wash 

 or scour woollen table-cloths, piano-covers, &c. 



SOUPS. I have given some rules for soups when speak- 

 ing of almond soup and turtle soup ; here, therefore, I shall 

 give but a few receipts for these preparations. To offer re- 

 ceipts for shank soups, or mutton broths, to American house- 

 keepers, would be to expose myself to the rebuke given by 

 Judge Marshall to the counsellor who was proceeding to lay 

 out his mental wares much as Sydney Smith says a French- 

 man does of whom you have imprudently asked information 

 upon some point, when the mild Judge finally interrupted the 

 everlasting drone of commonplace with, " Mr. , there are 



