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CHAPTEE XXVII. 



UP-GOUNTRY COOKERY. 



IT has been truly said that the Chinese are a nation of cooks, a fact that no one will 

 question who has spent any time in the East; and as regards food, the lines have 

 certainly fallen to us in pleasant places, for we can not only get the best of everything out 

 here in China, but have it well cooked too ; and nowhere does the cooking appear better or 

 are the dishes more appetizing than on a houseboat. 



So many cookery books now annually appear that it may seem superfluous to add 

 any further words on a subject so thoroughly exploited as cookery; so let it be understood 

 that the following hints and recipes are merely submitted that one may not always be 

 at the tender mercy of the chef, who appears wedded to the tendency to allow an emphatic 

 amount of sameness to pervade all his menus. 



Though the commissariat for a long trip is almost invariably left to the "boy," it 

 would certainly be as well to see what he had ordered before making a start. The vegetable 

 list should include a free supply of potatoes and onions, as they come into the most frequent 

 use. Up-country, beans, sweet potatoes, turnips and bamboo shoots amongst other things 

 can generally be bought. 



A ham, bacon, American salt cod, game pie, brawn and pork and beans always 

 come in handy. Good seafish can be obtained at any of the towns on the Hangchow Bay ; 

 but up-country fresh water fish, except the Mandarin fish, does not count for much. Small 

 fish should always be fried ; the large fresh water fish are best boiled. 



A FEW WRINKLES. 



1. Bread. — Uncut loaves wrapped up in a napkin and slowly warmed will cut like newly 



baked bread. It is a mistake to soften a dry, hard loaf with water. 



2. Biscuits. — Captains, Lemanns and similar biscuits are much improved by being 



occasionally re-heated. 



3. Butter will keep longer and cleaner if made up into very small pats. 



4. Cheese should be kept air-tight in an earthenware pan with lid. 



5. Milk should be thoroughly boiled and put into.no larger than half pint bottles, carefully 



sealed. 

 Milk to Preserve. — The milk to be taken direct from the cow and at once put into clean 

 dry bottles, which should be tightly corked and the corks wrapped round with cotton 

 cloth. The bottles should then be immersed up to their necks in a saucepan, boiled 

 for half-an-hour and kept there until the water cools down after boiling. Kept in a 

 cool place the milk will be found to remain fresh for at least three weeks. The many 

 preparations of good tinned milk may now displace the cumbersome bottle of the 

 fresh article. 



