EXTENSION COURSE IN VEGETABLE FOODS. 61 
bacteria. Young cucumbers and other green vegetables often are 
packed in salt as they are gathered and then kept until a convenient 
time comes for their further preparation for pickles. Greens, string 
beans, and similar vegetables used to be packed in salt like young 
cucumbers. Thoroughly freshened in the winter, they afford an 
agreeable variety. Now canned vegetables are more convenient. 
Smoking is very commonly combined with drying and salting as a 
means of preserving foods, but almost exclusively with meats and fish. 
Sauerkraut, a German preparation of cabbage, is evidently the 
survival of an ancient way of preserving the vegetable. The process 
is somewhat akin to the ensiling of forage for animals. Domestic 
methods vary more or less. According to one recipe, firm cabbage is 
sliced, packed with alternate layers of salt (sometimes a few caraWay 
seeds are added), and the mass is pressed down solidly under a 
weighted cover. After a little while fermentation takes place and 
the liquor which rises to the top is poured off and more salt and water 
added. According to another method, finely cut cabbage is mixed 
with salt and packed solidly into a cask or other container. In about 
six days scum will rise to the top of the liquor which collects on the 
top of the sauerkraut, and should be removed. The cask or other 
container should stand in a cool cellar. In about two weeks more the 
kraut will be ready for use. Experienced housekeepers know that the 
sauerkraut should be covered with a piece of board scrubbed until it 
is clean, with a well-scrubbed stone on top of the board to weight it 
down. The acid developed by the fermentation works upon the tough 
fibers of the cabbage leaf, making them more tender. Sauerkraut 
should be kept in a cool-place, and when needed should be squeezed 
as dry as may be and cooked like fresh cabbage. 
Cucumbers packed in salt will undergo fermentation, a fact taken 
advantage of in home pickle making. The salted cucumbers can be 
freshened from time to time in the winter and pickled in vinegar. 
Dill pickles are made with cucumbers packed in a similar way and 
flavored with dill, a seasoning herb which finds a place in many old- 
fashioned gardens. 
- From similar methods other types vf pickles may have been 
evolved. 
EXERCISE, LESSON XII. 
DRYING VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 
Materials needed.—Frames covered with cheesecloth or white mosquito net- 
ting; these may be sections of boxes, even of heavy pasteboard. 
Haercises——The essentials in drying vegetables are cleanliness, heat, and 
circulation of air. The more rapid the process the less the danger of bacteria, 
ferments, and molds. 
