The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
937 
Talks with a Trained Nurse 
Dear Home Nurse: Under our lov¬ 
ing care the patient has made such good 
progress that the doctor has said he may 
have a tray. How we cudgel our brains 
for the most tempting morsel to please his 
palate! With what pleasure do we get 
out our loveliest linens and prettiest china 
—so thankful are we for this happy day ! 
Once when I was a nurse in training, 
a woman doctor lecturing to my class 
made a remark I have never forgotten. 
She said : “Even a glass of water may 
be presented in such a manner that it be¬ 
comes a gift of the gods—a glorified glass 
of water.” And once I was ill in the 
hospital—very ill. I could not eat, and 
the doctor was worried about me. He 
ordered medicine to give me an appetite. 
Three times a day, before meals, I got 
my little dose, and three times a day I 
got a nicked cup on my tray and a tea¬ 
pot with a broken spout. Between you 
and me the doctor’s prescription would 
have accomplished more if it read like 
this: 
R 
Spotless napery 
Dainty china 
Shining silver 
with each meal. 
As I have said before, when we are 
sick we are sensitive, sometimes to an 
acute degree. All our senses are magni¬ 
fied and intensified. The convalescent 
patient may proclaim that he is raven¬ 
ously hungry, yet turn in disgust from 
some long-promised delicacy, perhaps be¬ 
cause of an unpleasant odor or too much 
discussion of the food, or the sight of a 
disli of something left over from the pre- 
. vious meal, or it may be because of a feel¬ 
ing of untidiness. So with all due re¬ 
spect to the doctor’s medicine, let us “beat 
him to it,” as the slang phrase goes. 
Feeding an invalid is really one of the 
pleasantest duties of a nurse. Nothing 
perhaps is so gratifying to her as th^ 
eager anticipation of an invalid for his 
tray, and his enjoyment of the daintily 
prepared food. She finds this an easy task 
if the patient is convalescent from an 
acute disease like typhoid or pneumonia. 
Such a patient as a rule is easy to please, 
because lie is hungry, and lets everybody 
know what he wants. For that we joy¬ 
fully forgive him, and spare no pains to 
let him have what he wants, provided it 
is not injurious to him. Tempting the 
appecite of the invalid of long standing 
is quite another matter, and taxes the 
nurse’s ingenuity to the utmost. A wise 
nurse always has something up her sleeve, 
however, and closely watches the signs of 
the times. In every case she is a re¬ 
lentless critic of her own efforts. I can¬ 
not repeat too often that sick people like 
routine, so then she will serve all meals 
on schedule time. She will prepare the 
patient for the meal by washing his face, 
hands and teeth, smoothing the hair and 
straightening up the bed. Opening all 
the windows wide a few moments before 
has a freshening and stimulating effect. 
Then the tray! Bet’s talk about the 
particulars of the invalid’s tray. It must 
be large enough to hold conveniently all 
the accessories of a meal. It should have 
legs and a hollowed out place in the front 
and a little railing around the other three 
sides. Such a tray is easily made by the 
handy man, but can be bought any place 
where sickroom supplies are sold. The 
tray cover is spotless and so is the nap¬ 
kin. The dishes are without cracks or 
nicks. The cutlery is clean and bright; 
salt and sugar dishes are filled, and there 
is never the faintest reminder of a pre¬ 
vious meal. The arrangement is always 
the same, and carefully thought out to 
meet the patient’s needs. Generally 
speaking, the rule for placing knife, fork, 
dishes, etc., is the same as observed in 
setting the table. The plate in the mid¬ 
dle, two inches from the front edge; knife 
and soup spoon to the right of the plate, 
forks to the left. A glass just above the 
knife, bread and butter plate and spread¬ 
er in the left upper corner, salt and pep¬ 
per in the center. Place the folded nap¬ 
kin above the plate or beside the forks — 
cup and saucer to the right of the knife, 
and salad or other plate to the left of the 
forks. This arrangement is the most con¬ 
venient to the patient unless he is left- 
handed, or has not the use of his right 
hand, in which case the order should be 
reversed. Hot-water plates with covers 
may be purchased, and are fine for keep¬ 
ing food hot until eaten. A well-warmed 
dinner plate covered with a heated bowl 
serves the same purpose admirably. A 
small casserole is good for many things. 
All dishes to contain hot foods should be 
heated, even the teacup if the weather is 
cold or the tray has to be carried some 
distance. The tea or coffee pot must be 
rinsed with boiling water before filling. 
Bread, butter, milk and water are put 
on the last moment before serving the hot 
food: Carefully gauge the invalid’s appe¬ 
tite. It is better to give too little than 
rooms for several years with perfect 
success, and much less work than some 
of the methods given in those replies. 
In the first place, we farmers miss a 
source of fine food by not knowing more 
about mushrooms. They are a delicious 
and healthful substitute for the most ex¬ 
pensive part of our diet, meat, a point 
of considerable importance in these days 
of large outgo and small incomes. Also 
we find them much more digestible. 
There are many fine edible varieties be¬ 
sides the common field mushi-oom, botan- 
ically Agaricus campestris. Of this lat¬ 
ter variety we have comparatively few in 
ordinary seasons, yet we eat mushrooms 
in quantity a good part of the season 
from May until after hard freezing 
weather, in November, and occasionally 
as late as December. We have eaten 
without any ill effects whatever, be¬ 
tween 45 and 50 varieties, and have no¬ 
where nearly exhausted the possibilities. 
Farmer’s Bulletin 79G is good for a 
Reading a Good Story 
too much. An easy way to remember 
the many little details is to hang up a 
placard like this: 
Don’t Forget 
Knife, fork, spoons, 
Napkin, 
Water, 
Bread, 
Butter, 
Salt, pepper, 
Sugar, cream, etc. 
to the last detail. That last detail might 
be one of a number of things according 
to the age, sex, and disposition of our 
invalid. It might be a flower, or a tiny 
dish of peppermints, or even a .paper 
doll, or a mysterious sealed envelope 
(with a joke inside). 
DO YOU KNOW THAT 
A dash of nutmeg improves the flavor 
of rhubarb sauce? 
Boiled rice served with stewed prunes 
and apple sauce makes a good dessert? 
The moderate use of spices and condi¬ 
ments increases the appetite and stimu¬ 
lates digestion? 
ELSIE M’INTYRE SAFFORD, R.N. 
Mushrooms; a Substitute for Meat 
Some time ago some one asked how to 
can mushrooms, and several replies were 
published; but I have canned mush- 
start in the study of mushrooms, and for 
those who wish to try raising them, 
there is Bulletin 204, “The Cultivation 
of Mushrooms.” Then there are more 
exhaustive books to be had, among them 
Mcllvaine’s “One Thousand American 
Fungi,” and the Report of the State 
Botanist, 1895. We found that these 
were out of print, but secured copies 
from second-hand bookstores by leaving 
an order for the first copy in good con¬ 
dition that came in. The books are 
somewhat expensive, but the money that 
would be saved over buying meat soon 
pays for the books. 
We have found a great deal of pleas¬ 
ure in using the little while that is free 
between Sunday dinner and time for the 
evening services (including “chores”) to 
roam over the farm and see how many 
varieties of mushrooms we could find. 
We have found a good many that we 
have never succeeded in identifying, and 
many that we have; and found them all 
interesting, and many that are beauti¬ 
ful in shape or color. We have just now 
been enjoying morels, among the most de¬ 
licious of mushrooms, in spite of the fact 
that they look somewhat like a sponge on 
top of a short thick stem. And just 
this week we have identified and tried 
out the delicious Pluteus cervinus (I 
do not know any common name and can 
only give the name in the book) which 
is the first of the large mushrooms to 
appear in the .Spring. I' found them 
growing around a rotting stump which 
was so far decayed that I could not 
tell what kind of a tree it had been. 
The mushrooms were just the color of 
a deer, from three to six inches across the 
cap, three or four inches high, with w T hite 
gills that slowly changed to salmon pink. 
When laid on a paper, gills down, the 
spores that presently outlined the shape 
of the mushroom, were a beautiful sal¬ 
mon pink and the gills were free from 
the stem in the center. The stem could 
with care be pulled free from the cap 
without breaking the cap. The flesh of 
the cap is white and thicker at the 
center. The gills are broader near the 
margin, and there was no ring around 
the stem, and no cup-shaped sheath at 
the bottom of the stem. These mush¬ 
rooms when fried in butter or bacon fat 
are delicious, and they are large enough 
so that they soon count towards enough 
for a meal. They are almost bell-shaped 
when they first come through the ground, 
but soon open up till nearly flat on top, 
and are sometimes cracked on the upper 
surface. 
The oyster mushrooms, described, in 
the bulletin referred to above, are to be 
found on decaying trees at this time of 
the year, and until freezing weather; 
and when dipped in egg and crumbs and' 
fried like an oyster are, to my taste, bet¬ 
ter than any fried oyster and lots 
less expensive, not to mention the fact 
that these convey no typhoid germs. A 
six-foot section of an elm log that lay 
over in one of our fence rows for sev¬ 
eral years, until the bark was so de¬ 
cayed that it would no longer stay on 
and furnish soil for the mushroom 
roots, furnished us with many quarts of 
oyster mushrooms during the time be¬ 
fore it lost its bark. Soon after a good 
rain there would be a fresh crop, and 
we decided that the tree was worth 
more for food production than for fire¬ 
wood. Now what is left will do for 
fireplace wood. These oysters make a 
fine stew as well as “fry.” 
The common mushroom showed up in 
our hotbed a year or two ago, and I 
took the water in which I washed them, 
purple from the spores which they had 
shed, and threw it, together with some 
over-matured specimens, on the manure 
pile where it was sure to fall on horse- 
manure. In a few weeks, beautiful big 
mushrooms began to push their way up 
through the manure, and when Fall came 
last year, we put some of that manure 
into the cellar, tramped.it down and as 
soon as the cellar temperature got up to 
about 50 this Spring mushrooms began 
to appear (here. I brought up one the 
other day that weighed three-eighths of 
a pound. In reading the “Hope Farm 
Notes” and observing what they eat 
sometimes, I smile and think that we 
have Mr. Collingwood beaten a little on 
one point; we eat less meat from the 
butcher shop—or anywhere else—and 
replace it with mushrooms that grow, 
for the most part, without cultivation or 
care on our own place. 
I have canned as many as four vari¬ 
eties, and dried some, and never lose a 
can. The common mushrooms that I 
canned this past year, I fried first, as 
we like the flavor of that method of 
cooking, then proceeded just the same 
as for any processing, filling the cans 
nearly full, putting in the teaspoon of 
salt to a quarter (or the half spoonful 
to the pint) filling nearly to the top 
with hot water, and processing about an 
hour and a half, then tightening the top. 
I do most of the mushrooms in pint 
cans, as they pack in closely, and a pint 
of closely packed mushrooms goes a long 
way. 
Those which I do not fry first, I first 
clean thoroughly, and I might say that 
the best way is to brush off dry dirt, 
then wash gills down, that dirt may not 
get in the folds, and drain in a colander. 
Then I put them in a square of cheese¬ 
cloth, and blanch in boiling water about 
five minutes, cold dip, pack them into 
cans (sterilized, of course), salt, add 
boiling water, and process an hour and 
a half. I do not find it necessary to 
process more than once, and consider the 
product superior to the much over-cooked 
one secured by that method, besides the 
much less work involved. I blanch all 
that I am doing one day in the same 
water, and when through cut up stems 
and add to that water and can that for 
cream of mushroom soup. The addition 
of cream or milk, and a tiny bit of 
thickening makes a delicious soup in the 
Winter. This is particularly true 
when canning the brownish red mush¬ 
room, Hypholoma perplexum, found 
around old chestnut and cherry stumps 
in October and November. These mush¬ 
rooms are of quite a strong -flavor, and 
by the time two or three lots have been 
blanched in the one water, it will be 
nearly black from the accumulation of 
the purple spores which these shed so 
lavishly. So strong is the flavor that 
with the addition of the milk and season¬ 
ings there is a rich mushroom taste— 
plenty strong enough. 
In seasons of normal rainfall, there 
are a succession of mushrooms that will 
help to diversify the farm menu ; and 
the addition of mushrooms will glorify 
an otherwise very humble meal. We 
can have for gathering what our city 
friends have to pay very high prices 
for, or go without. EDNA O. JONES. 
Rockland Co., N. Y. 
