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NEW ENGLAND F.\RMER. 



Sept. 



stirring. So these papers on cookery must include 

 directions for these things. But we will begin with 

 the most important of all food, bread. 



In the outset let me say, it is always the best 

 economy to cook well! and no good cooking can be 

 accomi)lished without good materials. Inferior, 

 impure, unripe, carelessly prepared, or too long 

 kept groceries, besides trying the patience of both 

 cook and consumer, arc neither nutritious nor 

 healthy ; — get only the best. These are not al- 

 ways the highest priced. Fancy names or brands 

 and showy wrappings cost high, and too often help 

 to sell a poor article; avoid them, — look for less 

 pretentious things, and when you have found the 

 right quality of goods, note its peculiarities and be 

 satisfied with nothing else in all future purchases. 



Don't buy new preparations unless you have 

 full confidence in those who recommend them. 



Having chosen your gi-oceries well, keep and use 

 them with care and prudence. "A place for every- 

 thing and everything in its place," important rule 

 as it is for every room in the house, is doubly so 

 for the store room and kitchen. No little waste is 

 occasioned, even by good managers, by carelegs- 

 ness here. Be sure that salt or sugar is not suffered 

 to remain in a damp closet ; spices, seasoning herbs, 

 tea or coffee, uncovered, or in the glaring sunlight ; 

 lard, butter, cheese, molasses, or syrup in the 

 heat; flour, meal, rice, sago, and such, things, 

 neither in heat nor dampness. See also that all 

 kitchen ware and utensils are made clean after 

 usage and placed so as to keep so till wanted again. 



Use crockery or stone ware for mixing or for 

 holding food; it is stronger than potter's ware, 

 and there is no danger of poison from the glazing, 

 as there is in that. Iron stew-pans and kettles are 

 better than copper or brass ; in fact, copper and 

 brass are so difficult to keep from canker— which 

 is poisonous— that they ought to oe banished from 

 the kitchen. Nothing is so good, however, as the 

 yellow crockery, or the porcelain-lined cast-iron 

 ware for stewing and boiling ; sheet-iron, if tinned, 

 or the common tin ware, gives a disagreeable fla- 

 vor to acids, though it answers for other things, 

 and is very suital)le for baking pans. Keep wooden 

 utensils where they arc not damp, nor yet warped 

 with the heat. Keep butter and lard either in 

 stone pots or oaken firkins — pine imparts its flavor 

 \o such things, and the glazed ware gets saturated 

 and rancid with them. Bread retains its moisture 

 and sweetness in stone pots, or closely covered 

 tinned ware — stone is best. 



Raised or leavened bread is in most common use. 

 Unleavened, or quickly raised bread, is convenient 

 at times. This comes under the head of johnny — 

 more properly jowrne]/ — cakes. The name is said 

 to have been given them fi-om their resemblance to 

 the unleavened bread of the Jews, which is still 

 used by them in commemorating their hasty de- 

 parture out of Egypt before their long journeyings 

 in the wilderness. It is the only kind of bread in 

 use at the present day among wandering tribes and 

 half-civilized nations of Asia and Africa ; among 



the gipsies also of Southern Europe and the peas- 

 antry. It is merely pounded or coarsely ground 

 wheat, millet, or barley, mixed with water, and 

 baked flat and thin in their rude ovens of heated 

 stones. From these came the black bread of Prus- 

 sia, Sweden, and France; the bannocks and oat- 

 cakes of Scotland ; the hoe cakes of our Southern 

 States, and our Yankee fire-cakes and johnny- 

 cakes ; which are made of scalded Indian mcaj, 

 sometimes of Indian and rye, or of wheat — meal or 

 flour — with occasionally a little saleratus as a slight 

 leavening power, and, for a change, a small quan- 

 tity of shortening— cream or lard, — and as a luxu- 

 ry a spoonful or two of molasses, when a sweet 

 cake is desired. These are baked — the hoe cakes 

 upon the metal of a clean hoe, in front of blazing 

 pine logs ; the johnny cakes before a clear fire, on 

 a piece of board or the gingerbread-tin of the far- 

 mer's wife ; the fire cakes in the old-fashioned 

 Dutch oven, hung over glowing ernbers, — the lid or 

 cover of the kettle called oven, holding hot ashes 

 and coals so that both sides of the cake are baked 

 at once ; a great improvement this upon the turn- 

 ing and slipping of hoe and johnny cakes to finish 

 the work. 



Since the general use of stoves some persons, 

 intent on keeping up old names, make what they call 

 johnny-cakes, delicate mixtures of superfine meal, 

 and flour, and milk, and eggs, and shortening, and 

 spice, and cream, and — I dare not enumerate all 

 the other "ingrejiencies," as the old cook calls them 

 in Douglas Jerrold's story, where, in her potato 

 pudding, one potato did service with dozens of 

 eggs and bottles of wine ; this new-fashioned john- 

 ny cake being something after that style — and 

 these are baked in the stove oven, and because 

 of the name considered simple and wholesome. 

 Economical they certainly are not, either in oost of 

 original materials, in cost of time for compound- 

 ing them, or cost of money for medicines to cor- 

 rect indigestion — which surely follows their con- 

 sumption. Let us reject such things, libels as they 

 are on good, healthful, substantial food, and if we 

 do not care for the real, old-fashioned johnny cake 

 take the modern biscuits when leavened bread is 

 not available. 



Leavened bread pre-supposes a raising power, — 

 yeart, barm, or emptyings, as it is called in its 

 liquid state — turn-pikes, yeast cakes, or yeast 

 flour, in its concentrated and dry form. The dry, 

 or hard yeast, is the most economical, and can be 

 kept much longer than the liquid. To make this, 

 put six quarts of cold water to a quarter of a 

 pound of hops and two cups of wheat or Indian 

 bran, and boil it till there is left but three quarts. 

 Strain the liquid, while boiling hot, upon four cups 

 of flour, with which has been mixed a tablespoon- 

 ful of salt, in a wooden vessel. When it is cool, 

 add to it a pint of barm, or liquid yeast, or two 

 yeast cakes broken up. Keep it in a warm place, 

 and the next day, if it foams strongly thicken it 

 with Indian meal till it can be moulded with the 

 hands. Then roll it into sheets a quarter of an 



