1914. 
IHE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
405 
The Baby Box. 
The biggest help I have found in home- 
making is my “baby box.” In it he is 
safe from harm, no cold draft on his lit¬ 
tle feet, nor danger of burns from touch¬ 
ing the hot stove when mother is busy. 
As I have never seen one like it, will tell 
you how I made it. I took a nice clean 
box made of smooth boards. It is 20 
inches high and 2G inches square. I gave 
it a coat of dark red paint inside and 
out; then I cut strips of an old quilt and 
rolled them so to make a solid roll about 
two inches through, and long enough to 
reach around top of box; sewed the edges 
over and over so it would stay in the roll, 
then I tacked a strip of stout ticking 
folded double so it would hold all around 
the top of box inside; laid the roll of 
quilt on top edge of box, brought the tick¬ 
ing up over the roll, drew it as tight 
as possible and tacked it smooth on out¬ 
side of box, thus making a padded roll 
edge on which baby cannot bump his lit¬ 
tle chin. Over the ticking I fasten an¬ 
other cover of red calico which can be 
renewed when soiled. The box should be 
of half-inch boards, or else have an extra 
piece nailed on around the top, or the 
tacks will prick through. On the under 
side of box fasten on each corner a plate 
castor with four screws, thus raising the 
box from the floor so it is easy to roll 
anywhere, up by the window, so baby 
can look out of doors, or close to the 
fire when baby is cold, and feel safe that 
he cannot fall and burn himself. I fold 
a soft blanket and lay inside the box 
for him to sit on, and be plays there hap¬ 
py ns can be with his toys. 
New York. cora Hamilton. 
SOUTHERN CREOLE COOKING. 
“Possum and Taters.” —I have eaten 
them cooked in stoves at home, and they 
were good, but one shining specimen 
looms up o’erslmdowing all others. I 
wonder if the old mammy that fixed him 
up is still alive? She ought to have a 
monument, and a baked ’possum on top 
of it. It was ’way up in the cotton 
country, where there are nine darkeys to 
a white man, and on a cold January day, 
about dark, when we came in after a 
hunt. Old mammy with her head in a 
bandanna did her cooking in a big rock 
fireplace, in pots and pans and skillets, 
and had roasted us a couple of ’possums 
that way, with “yaller yam taters” with 
them, not the white gun-wadding kind 
that would choke an ostrich, but the 
“yaller” ones that run sugar. That ’pos¬ 
sum and those “taters,” and the way 
they were cooked, and the gravy! We 
forgot our manners, and just sopped it 
up with corn pone or biscuits, and 
washed it down with black coffee. Why, 
the things that old black slave, who 
could neither read nor write, could rake 
out of an open fireplace and a skillet, 
make Marion Ilarland’s scientific mes¬ 
ses look hardly fit for pig feed. 
The Pouldeau. —Then visions of poul- 
deau flit through my think box. The 
pouldeau is not a duck; it is a kind of 
water hen, and lives on shrimps, worms, 
minnows and other small live creatures. 
If fixed like a duck or goose it is so 
fishy it is uneatable, but a good French 
cook skins the animal and soaks him in 
vinegar and water a little while, and pre¬ 
pares a stew, pouldeau stew. .1 list how 
it is made I do not know, but it is great. 
A baked pouldeau is a dish that is hard 
to beat, and one apiece is about the right 
amount. A scientific cook can’t cook 
them; it takes a person who just knows 
how. A canvasback is not in it with the 
humble pouldeau, if the right person 
handles them. What is it like? Ah! 
The English language was not built to 
describe French and Indian cookery, so 
I cannot tell you, but would like to show 
you. 
The Pensacola Chicken. —There is 
the turtle and the gopher, not the West¬ 
ern squirrel, but the dry-land terrapin, 
or as we call it, the Pensacola chicken, 
about 15 to IS inches long and 10 to 12 
wide, about the size of a small turtle, 
and cooked the same way. He brings 
back childhood’s days, and my old 
Spanish-Indian nurse and cook, Maria 
Diaz, a typical Indian, and a cook who 
could not be beaten. As a small boy, if 
real good, she allowed me to kill and 
clean the turtle or gopher for her. If 
I was bad, she did it herself, or let my 
brother do it. I will tell you about it. 
You laid the gopher on his back and 
got a coal of fire and set it where his 
diamond shirt-stud would be if he was in 
full dress. He sticks out his head to see 
if the house is afire, when you jab him 
in the neck with a kitchen fork, and 
cut off his head with a big knife or a 
hatchet. I never heard one say it hurt, 
so it must not. You now stand him on 
end and take a hatchet and chop the bot¬ 
tom shell loose from the top one, all 
around; when this is done use a sharp 
knife and cut the bottom shell loose from 
the flesh and clean off any good pieces of 
meat still sticking to it. The front and 
back legs are then twisted loose, cut 
apart and skinned. The body is cleaned 
just like a chicken is, and if at the right 
season, you may find some eggs, and they 
are a prize. After all the meat is well 
washed, you can have either a turtle 
stew or a turtle gumbo. They are stewed 
much like chicken, but are seasoned with 
lemon, allspice, pepper and a little onion, 
and cooked until the meat will fall off the 
bones, and served with a lot of gravy. 
If it was not for bad manners you would 
eat a whole one. For gumbo, you make 
a kind of soup with the turtle, and the 
eggs are a big addition to either the 
gumbo or stew; season it highly, put in 
some lemon, and cook thoroughly, and 
you have something that will stick both 
to your ribs and memory. Yes, even the 
smell of it will tempt a miser to part 
with his coin. You can’t get it in a 
restaurant, and a cook book cannot show 
you how. The art is handed down from 
mother to daughter, and if any of you 
young men are hunting a daughter get 
one that has a prepotency for making 
turtle stew or gumbo, for a poor cook 
can’t. You can buy gophers by the half 
dozen, and keep them in a box and feed 
on grass and vegetables so as to have 
them on hand and fat when wanted. 
They live in burrows in the ground, and 
are snared in pits, or with a noose in a 
string. 
Crawfish. —The next dish along the 
line is the crayfish or crawfish. They 
have never tasted as good to me as they 
did when a bare-footed rascal, catching 
them out of ditches and mud-holes, and 
cooking in any rusty can or bucket at 
hand, over a smoky fire in an old field; 
yet they are a tempting dish when boiled, 
tails broken off and skinned, and then 
served in a salad or gumbo or bisque, and 
one memory of them that seems impos¬ 
sible to shake off is of an obscure little 
French restaurant in New Orleans, where 
they served in a bisque, made of the heads 
cleaned and stuffed with the chopped meat 
from the tails, and seasoned, then cooked 
in a broth. I ate two plates, and but for 
the looks of it, would have had more. 
This with a little smothered lamb, dessert 
and coffee was the dinner. There is a 
flavor to the crayfish different from 
shrimp, lobster or crab, and it seems to 
have a kind of winning way with the 
palate. 
Orange-flower Praline. —After all 
these good things, I really feel the need 
of a dessert, a little square of orange- 
flower praline. The praline is made of 
the petals of orange-flowers stirred in 
granulated sugar cooked to the point 
where it turns back to sugar when stir¬ 
red, and is esteemed as not only a deli¬ 
cacy, but a necessity in the old Creole 
families, and if Iluyler or any of those 
big candy-makers could get it, they would 
throw three fits and a spasm for joy; 
they turn out nothing to touch it. It 
beats a wedding, for you have orange 
blossoms for life in it. M. A. farker. 
Alabama. 
City Visitor: “Your father is shell¬ 
ing corn late to-night.” Country Host: 
“He ain’t shelling corn ; he’s winding his 
Waterbury watch.” — Birmingham Age- 
Herald. 
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FUMA 
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Handy 
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postpaid for 25 cents. 
The Rural New-Yorker 
333 W. 30th St., New York City 
When you write advertisers mention The R. N.-Y. and you’ll get a quick repiy 
and a “square deal.” See guarantee editorial page. 
