href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@25631@[email protected]#Footnote_XI-1_1" class="fnanchor pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">xi-1 flies
Immortal made, as Kit-cat by his pies.
Next, let discretion moderate your cost,
And when you treat, three courses be the most.
Let never fresh machines your pastry try,
Unless grandees or magistrates are by,
Then you may put a dwarf into a pie.xi-2
Crowd not your table; let your number be
Not more than seven, and never less than three.
’Tis the dessert that graces all the feast,
For an ill end disparages the rest.
A thousand things well done, and one forgot,
Defaces obligation by that blot.
Make your transparent sweetmeats truly nice
With Indian sugar and Arabian spice.
And let your various creams encircled be
With swelling fruit just ravish’d from the tree.
The feast now done, discourses are renewed,
And witty arguments with mirth pursued;
The cheerful master, ’midst his jovial friends,
His glass to their best wishes recommends.
The grace cup follows: To the President’s health
And to the country; Plenty, Peace, and Wealth!
Performing, then, the piety of grace,
Each man that pleases reassumes his place;
While at his gate, from such abundant store,
He showers his godlike blessings on the poor.

“Despise not my good counsel.”

MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS
FOR THE USE OF THE
MISTRESS OF A FAMILY.

The mistress of a family should always remember that the welfare and good management of the house depend on the eye of the superior, and, consequently, that nothing is too trifling for her notice, whereby waste may be avoided.

Many families have owed their prosperity full as much to the conduct and propriety of female arrangement, as to the knowledge and activity of the father.

All things likely to be wanted should be in readiness,—sugars of different qualities should be broken; currants washed, picked and dry in a jar; spice pounded, &c. Every article should be kept in that place best suited to it, as much waste may thereby be avoided. Vegetables will keep best on a stone floor if the air be excluded. Dried meats, hams, &c., the same. All sorts of seeds for puddings, rice, &c., should be close-covered, to preserve from insects. Flour should be kept in a cool, perfectly dry room, and the bag being tied should be changed upside down and back every week, and well shaken. Carrots, parsnips, and beet-roots should be kept in sand for winter use, and neither they nor potatoes be cleared from the earth. Store onions preserve best hung up in a dry room. Straw to lay apples on should be quite dry, to prevent a musty taste. Tarragon gives the flavor of French cookery, and in high gravies should be added only a short time before serving.

Basil, savory, and knotted marjoram, or London thyme, to be used when herbs are ordered; but with discretion, as they are very pungent.

Celery seeds give the flavor of the plant to soups. Parsley should be cut close to the stalks, and dried on tins in a very cool oven; it preserves its flavor and color, and is very useful in winter. Artichoke bottoms, which have been slowly dried, should be kept in paper bags, and truffles, lemon-peel, &c., in a very dry place, ticketed.

Pickles and sweetmeats should be preserved from air: where the former are much used, small jars of each should be taken from the stock-jar, to prevent frequent opening.

Some of the lemons and oranges used for juice should be pared first, to preserve the peel dry; some should be halved, and, when squeezed, the pulp cut out, and the outsides dried for grating.

If for boiling any liquid, the first way is best. When whites of eggs are used for jelly, or other purposes, contrive to have pudding, custards, &c., to employ the yolks also.

Gravies or soups put by, should be daily changed into fresh scalded pans.

If chocolate, coffee, jelly, gruel, bark, &c., be suffered to boil over, the strength is lost.

The cook should be charged to take care of jelly bags, tapes for the collared things, &c., which, if not perfectly scalded and kept dry, give an unpleasant flavor when next used.

Hard water spoils the color of vegetables; a pinch of pearlash or salt of wormwood will prevent that effect.

When sirloins of beef, loins of veal or mutton come in, part of the suet may be cut off for puddings, or to clarify; dripping will baste everything as well as butter, fowls and game excepted; and for kitchen pies nothing else should be used.

Meat and vegetables that the frost has touched should be soaked in cold water two or three hours before they are used, or more if much iced; when put into hot water, or to the fire until thawed, no heat will dress them properly.

Meat should be well examined when it comes in, in warm weather. In the height of the summer it is a very safe way to let meat that is to be salted lie an hour in cold water; then wipe it perfectly dry, and have ready salt, and rub it thoroughly into every part, leaving a handful over it besides. Turn it every day and rub the pickle in, which will make it ready for the table in three or four days; if it is desired to be very much corned, wrap it in a well-floured cloth, having rubbed it previously with salt. The latter method will corn fresh beef fit for table the day it comes in; but it must be put into the pot when the water boils.

If the weather permits, meat eats much better for hanging two or three days before it be salted.

The water in which meat has been boiled makes an excellent soup for the poor, when vegetables, oatmeal, or peas are added, and should not be cleared from the fat. Roast beef bones, or shank bones of ham, make fine peas soup, and should be boiled with the peas the day before eaten, that the fat may be removed. The mistress of the house will find many great advantages in visiting her larder daily before she orders the bill of fare; she will see what things require dressing, and thereby guard against their being spoiled. Many articles may be redressed in a different form from that in which they are first served, an improve the appearance of the table without