204 BRITISH EDIBLE FUNGI. 



room caps, denuded of the stems, are selected, full 

 grown specimens being preferred, and these should be 

 collected in dry weather, and not when the mush- 

 rooms are saturated with moisture, in which latter 

 case the ketchup turns musty and will not keep. A 

 layer of mushroom caps are placed, gills upwards, in a 

 deep pan, and sprinkled with salt, some say in the pro- 

 portion of one ounce of salt to a gallon of mushrooms, 

 and some recommend double that quantity. Then 

 another and. another layer of mushrooms are added 

 alternately with salt, until the pan is filled. These 

 are allowed to remain for five or six hours, or all 

 night, and then all the caps are to be broken up and 

 mixed together in a genefal mess by hand. The 

 pan with its contents should be stood in a cool place 

 for three days, occasionally stirring and mashing so 

 that all the fragments may be well broken and 

 mixed, so as to extract as much of the juice as 

 possible. The liquor may now be poured off, without 

 straining, and measured, so as to add for each quart 

 of liquor a quarter of an ounce of cayenne, half an 

 ounce of allspice, half an ounce of bruised ginger, and 

 two blades of pounded mace. Some prefer to substi- 

 tute for the cayenne and allspice an ounce of whole 

 pepper and a few cloves. The liquor and the spice is 

 now put into a stone jar, which is covered and 

 plunged in a saucepan of boiling water, set over the 

 fire, and kept boiling for three hours. The contents 

 of the jar may now be turned into a clean saucepan, 



