538 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Nov. 



use both sweet and sour apples. Boil first one 

 gallon of new cider till only one quart remains. 

 Set a large kettle (in which a dish or plate is laid, 

 to prevent the sauce from burning at the bottom) 

 over a slow fire. Pare, quarter, and core your 

 apples ;— you will need two gallons of cut apple 

 for a quart of boiled cider. Put these with the 

 cider into the kettle and let it boil two hours ; 

 then pour in a quart of molasses, stir the sauce 

 thoroughly, and boil it steadily six hours more. 

 A coal fire covered with ashes will cook this well. 

 If the fire will keep all night let the kettle remain, 

 stewing moderately, till morning ; it will then be 

 of a bright red color. Take it into stone or glass 

 jars, or an oaken firkin. Never put it into glazed 

 earthen ware;— there is arsenic in the glazing, 

 which the acid sets free. The apple is such a 

 healthful fruit it ought to be on our tables in 

 some form at every meal. 



Next to this comes the tomato. The skin of 

 this should always be removed by scalding and 

 rubbing or peeling ; then with salt alone, or salt, 

 pepper and vinegar it is very relishing to the 

 homeliest fare. Sliced, with sugar, it is delicious ; 

 and with good milk or cream added elegant 

 enough to set before a king. Skinned, flavored 

 with a trifle of salt and pepper, and the least dole 

 of butter, and boiled half an hour, it is the very 

 best sauce for any meat dinner, and just the thing 

 to be placed piping hot on a hungry man's supper 

 table. 



All these methods for keeping and preparing 

 fruit for food can be recommended, they are all 

 economical and healthful. But many persons are 

 not satisfied with them. Pickles and preserves, 

 they crave, and will have, in spite of disordered 

 stomachs, diseased livers, and cadaverous faces. 

 So a few general directions are here given for 

 these. 



Pickles — the very name is an abomination — to be 

 considered nice must be made, and kept, hard and 

 crisp. Also, they must be of good color— green 

 being the favorite hue ; and to obtain this they 

 must be made in a brass kettle, though a porce- 

 lain-lined iron one is better in every respect, ex- 

 cept for imparting a green color. Alum must be 

 dissolved in the vinegar to harden them, and the 

 hottest of spices, in plenty, to flavor them. And, 

 furthermore, everything to be pickled must be 

 unripe, — as crude as possible; and the whole 

 vegetable kingdon seems to have been ransacked 

 to get substances of the most indigestible nature 

 as materials for pickles. When some individuals 

 will consume a barrel of these in a year, is it 

 strange that we have so many "sour old maids" 

 in Yankeedom ? 



The cold, watery cucumber has always been a 

 favorite among pickles. Get those of the size of 

 your forefinger, directly from the vines if possible. 

 Take a hundred of them, wipe them clean and 

 pack them in coarse Liverpool or rock salt, in an 

 oaken tub or firkin, and spread a cabbage leaf 



(green, of course,) over the top. At the end of 

 one week take them from the salt and put them in 

 a stone jar or broad-mouthed bottle, together 

 with whole cloves, peppercorns, and allspice — an 

 ounce of each to a hundred pickles. Use only 

 cider vinegar. In each gallon dissolve two ounces 

 of powdered alum, and pour this cold over the 

 pickles, filling the jar or bottle, which must be 

 kept tightly covered. Some persons heat the vin- 

 egar and pour it boiling hot upon the cucumbers, 

 but there is no necessity for it. It is well to keep 

 most of the pickles in salt (the juice which exudes 

 from them making sutHcient brine to keep from 

 drying,) and to freshen them a gallon at a time ; 

 they may be kept unchanged two or three years 

 in the salt. Those that you wish to freshen place 

 in a deep crockery dish, and pour over cold water 

 enough to cover them. Let this stand one day 

 and one night ; then turn it off and pour more 

 cold water upon them, and so continue, renewing 

 the water each day, till they are none too salt ; 

 four or five days will accomplish this. 



Small onions, skinned, hard-boiled eggs divested 

 of their shells, and sweet apples, pared and cored, 

 need only the spice and vinegar; they will be 

 pickled in a week. Peppers, radish-pods, bar- 

 berries, cranberries, and nasturtium seeds need 

 no spice ; only cover them with the vinegar. A 

 week will pickle these also. 



Tomatoes are best pickled in small slices in the 

 following manner: A gallon of small tomatoes 

 cut in slices one-eighth of an inch in thickness, 

 and two quarts of small onions sliced the same. 

 Put them in a deep dish, in layers, sprinkling 

 each layer plentifully with fine salt. Let them 

 stand over night. In the morning turn otf the 

 brine which the juice of the tomatoes and onions 

 has made, and mix among the slices an ounce 

 each of whole cloves, allspice, pepper, and white 

 mustard seed ; and a coffee-cupful of horse radish 

 root cut into thin slices the size of dice. Then 

 put this all into bottles and fill up with cold 

 vinegar. Cork the bottles tightly. This pickle 

 will be ready for the table in one week, and the 

 older it is the better it will be. It will keep years 

 in a cold, dark cellar. 



Small melons after their seeds are removed 

 make hard and crisp pickles. Cut them in halves, 

 lengthwise, and scrape out the seeds with a 

 wooden spoon. Then salt them like cucumbers. 

 After that sew them with a needle and coarse 

 thread together — into their natural form, — leaving 

 a small aperture at one end, by which they must 

 be filled with sliced onion flavored by thrusting in 

 with it a few cloves, peppercorns and mustard 

 seed. Then sew up this aperture also. Cover 

 these melons vnth vinegar — they will need it ap- 

 plied scalding hot— in stone jars. 



Cabbages — the purple are considered most suit- 

 able — should be cut in quarter inch slices, after 

 the outer thin leaves are taken off and the whole 

 head carefully searched for insects, and placed in 



