662 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
September 24 
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* Woman and ♦ 
♦ The Home. I 
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FROM DAY TO DAY. 
A cokkkspondent in Pennsylvania gives 
the following suggestion concerning can¬ 
ning tomatoes: 
Our kitchen expertresses are busy putting up 
their Crimson Cushions and other preferred sorts 
of tomatoes, and they think the directions and 
precautions on page 578 of August 27 are excel¬ 
lent. They have a way of heading off the “sizzling” 
which is simple, yet in a high degree useful. The 
jars are tested as to their air-tightness by put¬ 
ting a little warm water into each, screwing on 
the top and inverting them on the window sill. 
If there is any leak at all it will soon show itself. 
To wait for the sizzle to disclose it, is to run the 
risk of having all the work of heating, filling and 
sealing the jar to do twice over. 
The proper straining of jelly, to pro¬ 
duce perfect clearness, often seems quite 
troublesome. One of our experts asserts 
that it should be strained three times, 
to be quite sure of its translucency. It 
may receive its second straining when 
measured, without extra trouble. Make 
a shallow bag of scrim, attached to a 
wire circle large enough to go over the 
top of the measuring cup. Pour the juice 
through this bag when measuring the 
juice. A final straining may be given in 
the same way when the completed jelly 
is being poured into the glasses ; a coarse 
quality of scrim should be used, and the 
jelly will pass through satisfactorily 
while hot. After this the jelly is sure 
to be crystal-clear. 
* 
At the New England Kitchen, in Bos¬ 
ton, where nutritious and perfectly 
cooked food is sold at low prices, one of 
the standard dishes is beef broth. A 
variety of experiments were tried in the 
making of this, to produce an unvarying 
flavor and quality. The old-fashioned 
plan of making the soup in a pot on the 
stove was given up, as being wasteful 
and unsatisfactory, and finally the use 
of the Aladdin oven was settled upon. A 
report of the Kitchen has this to say of 
the advantages of this mode of cooking : 
Fiist, it made the scientific requirements for 
soup-making possible—i. e., (a) long, slow beat¬ 
ing before the coagulating point was reached ; 
(6) the continuation of the cooking at a tempera¬ 
ture slightly below the boiling point, and long 
enough to get from the bones and tendons that 
proportion of gelatin which we knew to be de¬ 
sirable; (c) the retention of the full flavor; and 
(d) the production of a soup almost invariable 
in quality. Second, the greatest possible amount 
of broth was in this way obtained from a given 
quantity of meat and bones, no other process 
approaching it in this respect. Third, the labor 
involved was very small; nothing, in fact, be¬ 
tween the placing of the vessel in the oven and 
removing it for straining. It suited our con¬ 
venience, also, in that the cooking could be done 
at night, the meat being prepared during the 
day; and although the lamp under the oven 
went out some hours before the soup could be 
strained, the non-conducting character of the 
apparatus kept the heat, and prevented any 
deterioration of the soup. Fourth, the cost of 
fuel was reduced to a minimum, 25 quarts of 
soup being made with three pints of kerosene, at 
a cost of less than five cents. 
* 
Spiced cantaloupes are not very com¬ 
monly made, yet they form a delicious 
sweetmeat, their only drawback to a 
busy housewife, being the fact that the 
syrup must be reboiled for nine consecu¬ 
tive mornings. However, this work re¬ 
quires but a few minutes, and the boil¬ 
ing may be attended to while cooking 
breakfast. The manner of spicing is as 
follows: Select small N utmeg canta¬ 
loupes, well formed but slightly green. 
Cut them into sections as the rind is 
marked. Pare, remove the seeds and 
weigh the pieces. To each seven pounds 
of the cantaloupe, allow four pounds of 
brown sugar and one pound of cider 
vinegar. Put the sugar and vinegar in 
a porcelain-lined kettle, and add half an 
ounce of whole cloves, green ginger and 
stick cinnamon. When hot, put it in the 
cantaloupe and watch carefully until 
each piece is hot, but not soft. Lift 
each piece carefully and put in a stone 
jar. Pour over the syrup, and stand 
aside to cool. The next morning drain 
off all the liquor, bring it to boiling 
point and pour it over the cantaloupe in 
the jar. Put one teaspoonful each of 
ground allspice, ground mace and cinna¬ 
mon into a cup; mix, divide in halves 
and tie each half closely in a small piece 
of cheesecloth. Put these in the jar and 
stand away again over night. The fol¬ 
lowing morning pour the liquor off 
again, boil and strain it over the canta¬ 
loupe, straining out all the whole spices. 
These spices have by this time parted 
with all their aromatic flavor, and if 
left in will give a woody flavor to the 
pickles. Allow the bags of ground spice 
to remain in for two or three nights. 
Keep the jar in a cool place; drain off 
the liquor, boil and pour it back nine 
consecutive mornings ; the last time boil 
it down to the consistency of molasses 
and to sufficient quantity just to cover 
the cantaloupe. Tie and keep in a cool, 
dry place. 
EVERY-DAY WISDOM. 
A widespread evil which cries aloud 
for reform, is the untidy condition at 
the back door of many homes; not es¬ 
pecially the farmhouses, either. Farm¬ 
ers’ wives are no more heedless about 
having an unwholesome swamp near the 
kitchen door than hundreds of other 
kinds of housekeepers. The habit of 
throwing out dish-water or other slops 
containing potato peelings, onions and 
other vegetable refuse, gives an unsight¬ 
ly appearance to a place which ought to 
be avoided. If the well happens to be 
near where the ground is constantly 
soaked, it becomes a standing menace to 
the health of the family. The keeping 
of such places in good order ought to be 
made both a study and a practice. 
A great deal of uncharitable feeling 
might be avoided if people did not take 
it on themselves to criticise their neigh¬ 
bors’ affairs so sharply. How common 
it is to hear a person say that Mr. So- 
and-so ought to give liberally to this en¬ 
terprise ; he has more money than he 
knows what to do with, and would never 
feel a good donation if he were disposed 
to give one. Is it not a common-sense 
view of it that every man knows the ins 
and outs of his own business, and the 
expenses he must meet, better than his 
most enlightened neighbor ? And is it 
not simply a lack of business experience 
which causes these judgments of the 
financial ability of other people ? Some¬ 
times it seems like a selfish way of cov¬ 
ering their own lack of public spirit. 
A short time since, I was reading an 
article in a daily paper, giving elaborate 
directions how to maintain one’s health. 
One thing was strongly insisted upon, 
and that was exercise. Women were 
exhorted and entreated to take some ex¬ 
ercise every day. No particular class of 
women were specified, and as I read, I 
wondered if farmers’ wives were included 
in these directions. Is there a person 
living so ignorant of the details of the 
management of a house as to think that 
any woman who does her own work, 
needs besides that, to have especial exer¬ 
cise added to her duties? aunt rachei.. 
MADE-OVER DISHES. 
The good man who sits opposite me at 
the table likes baked beans once in a 
while, but not twice in a while; so, when 
beans are left from a meal, I sometimes 
serve them the next day in a soup pre¬ 
pared as follows : Put the beans into the 
soup kettle with four times their bulk 
in water, add their bulk in peeled and 
sliced onions, and stew for 1% hour; 
then add salt, pepper and a teaspoonful 
of celery seed ; also add more water if 
necessary. Boil 15 minutes longer, then 
IN THE OCTOBER LADIES’ HOME JOURNAL 
Mrs. Caroline Atwater Mason, author of “A Minister of the 
World,” begins a new story called “The Minister of Carthage,” 
depicting a young clergyman’s high sense of duty battling with 
love and something akin to ambition. 
Josiah Allen’s Wife 
Has written another story for the Journal 
readers. She tells in it about a sickly 
society girl, and what brought her to her 
senses and good health. 
In Mary E. Wilkins’ 
Capital new story a metropolitan woman 
does some very funny things, and in 
trying to elevate the villagers she learns 
a thing or two. 
IN THE SATURDAY EVENING POST 
are to be found the best serial and short stories the world can 
produce. The handsomest illustrated weekly published. 
We will mail The Ladies’ Home Journal, beginning with the next issue 
(October number), to January i, 1899, also The Saturday Evening Post, 
every week, from the time subscription is received to January 1, 1899, for Twenty-five 
Cents, for the purpose of introducing our weekly with our well-known monthly. 
The Curtis Publishing Company, Philadelphia 
