The Book of Household Management Part 199

DISH OF STRAWBERRIES.

1606. Fine strawberries, arranged in the manner shown in the engraving, look exceedingly well. The inferior ones should be placed at the bottom of the dish, and the others put in rows pyramidically, with the stalks downwards; so that when the whole is completed, nothing but the red part of the fruit is visible. The fruit should be gathered with rather long stalks, as there is then something to support it, and it can be placed more upright in each layer. A few of the finest should be reserved to crown the top.

TO HAVE WALNUTS FRESH THROUGHOUT THE SEASON.

1607. INGREDIENTS.--To every pint of water allow 1 teaspoonful of salt.

_Mode_.--Place the walnuts in the salt and water for 24 hours at least; then take them out, and rub them dry. Old nuts may be freshened in this manner; or walnuts, when first picked, may be put into an earthen pan with salt sprinkled amongst them, and with damped hay placed on the top of them, and then covered down with a lid. They must be well wiped before they are put on table.

_Seasonable_.--Should be stored away in September or October.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON MILK, b.u.t.tER, CHEESE, AND EGGS.

MILK.

1608. Milk is obtained only from the cla.s.s of animals called Mammalia, and is intended by Nature for the nourishment of their young. The milk of each animal is distinguished by some peculiarities; but as that of the cow is by far the most useful to us in this part of the world, our observations will be confined to that variety.

1609. Milk, when drawn from the cow, is of a yellowish-white colour, and is the most yellow at the beginning of the period of lactation. Its taste is agreeable, and rather saccharine. The viscidity and specific gravity of milk are somewhat greater than that of water; but these properties vary somewhat in the milk procured from different individuals. On an average, the specific gravity of milk is 1.035, water being 1. The small cows of the Alderney breed afford the richest milk.

1610. Milk which is carried to a considerable distance, so as to be much agitated, and cooled before it is put into pans to settle for cream, never throws up so much, nor such rich cream, as if the same milk had been put into pans directly after it was milked.

1611. Milk, considered as an aliment, is of such importance in domestic economy as to render all the improvements in its production extremely valuable. To enlarge upon the antiquity of its use is unnecessary; it has always been a favourite food in Britain. "Lacte et carno vivunt,"

says Caesar, in his Commentaries; the English of which is, "the inhabitants subsist upon flesh and milk." The breed of the cow has received great improvement in modern times, as regards the quant.i.ty and quality of the milk which she affords; the form of milch-cows, their mode of nourishment, and progress, are also manifest in the management of the dairy.

1612. Although milk in its natural state be a fluid, yet, considered as an aliment, it is both solid and fluid: for no sooner does it enter the stomach, than it is coagulated by the gastric juice, and separated into curd and whey, the first of these being extremely nutritive.

1613. Milk of the _human subject_ is much thinner than cow's milk; _a.s.s's milk_ comes the nearest to human milk of any other; _Goat's milk_ is something thicker and richer than cow's milk; _Ewe's milk_ has the appearance of cow's milk, and affords a larger quant.i.ty of cream; _Mare's milk_ contains more sugar than that of the ewe; _Camel's milk_ is used only in Africa; _Buffalo's milk_ is employed in India.

1614. From no other substance, solid or fluid, can so great a number of distinct kinds of aliment be prepared as from milk; some forming food, others drink; some of them delicious, and deserving the name of luxuries; all of them wholesome, and some medicinal: indeed, the variety of aliments that seems capable of being produced from milk, appears to be quite endless. In every age this must have been a subject for experiment, and every nation has added to the number by the invention of some peculiarity of its own.

b.u.t.tER.

1615. BECKMAN, in his "History of Inventions," states that b.u.t.ter was not used either by the Greeks or Romans in cooking, nor was it brought upon their tables at certain meals, as is the custom at present. In England it has been made from time immemorial, though the art of making cheese is said not to have been known to the ancient Britons, and to have been learned from their conquerors.

1616. The taste of b.u.t.ter is peculiar, and very unlike any other fatty substance. It is extremely agreeable when of the best quality; but its flavour depends much upon the food given to the cows: to be good, it should not adhere to the knife.

1617. b.u.t.ter, with regard to its dietetic properties, may be regarded nearly in the light of vegetable oils and animal fats; but it becomes sooner rancid than most other fat oils. When fresh, it cannot but be considered as very wholesome; but it should be quite free from rancidity. If slightly salted when it is fresh, its wholesomeness is probably not at all impaired; but should it begin to turn rancid, salting will not correct its unwholesomeness. When salt b.u.t.ter is put into casks, the upper part next the air is very apt to become rancid, and this rancidity is also liable to affect the whole cask.

1618. _Epping b.u.t.ter_ is the kind most esteemed in London. _Fresh b.u.t.ter_ comes to London from Buckinghamshire, Suffolk, Oxfordshire, Yorkshire, Devonshire, &c. _Cambridge b.u.t.ter_ is esteemed next to fresh; _Devonshire b.u.t.ter_ is nearly similar in quality to the latter; _Irish b.u.t.ter_ sold in London is all salted, but is generally good. The number of firkins exported annually from Ireland amounts to 420,000, equal to a million of money. _Dutch b.u.t.ter_ is in good repute all over Europe, America, and even India; and no country in the world is so successful in the manufacture of this article, Holland supplying more b.u.t.ter to the rest of the world than any country whatever.

1619. There are two methods pursued in the manufacture of b.u.t.ter. In one, the cream is separated from the milk, and in that state it is converted into b.u.t.ter by churning, as is the practice about Epping; in the other, milk is subjected to the same process, which is the method usually followed in Cheshire. The first method is generally said to give the richest b.u.t.ter, and the latter the largest quant.i.ty, though some are of opinion that there is little difference either in quality or quant.i.ty.

CHEESE.

1620. CHEESE is the curd formed from milk by artificial coagulation, pressed and dried for use. Curd, called also casein and caseous matter, or the basis of cheese, exists in the milk, and not in the cream, and requires only to be separated by coagulation. The coagulation, however, supposes some alteration of the curd. By means of the substance employed to coagulate it, it is rendered insoluble in water. When the curd is freed from the whey, kneaded and pressed to expel it entirely, it becomes cheese. This a.s.sumes a degree of transparency, and possesses many of the properties of coagulated alb.u.men. If it be well dried, it does not change by exposure to the air; but if it contain moisture, it soon putrefies. It therefore requires some salt to preserve it, and this acts likewise as a kind of seasoning. All our cheese is coloured more or less, except that made from skim milk. The colouring substances employed are arnatto, turmeric, or marigold, all perfectly harmless unless they are adulterated; and it is said that arnatto sometimes contains red lead.

1621. Cheese varies in quality and richness according to the materials of which it is composed. It is made--1. Of entire milk, as in Cheshire; 2. of milk and cream, as at Stilton; 3. of new milk mixed with skimmed milk, as in Gloucestershire; 4. of skimmed milk only, as in Suffolk, Holland, and Italy.

1622. The princ.i.p.al varieties of cheese used in England are the following:--_Cheshire cheese_, famed all over Europe for its rich quality and fine piquant flavour. It is made of entire new milk, the cream not being taken off. _Gloucester cheese_ is much milder in its taste than the Cheshire. There are two kinds of Gloucester cheese,--single and double. _Single Gloucester_ is made of skimmed milk, or of the milk deprived of half the cream; _Double Gloucester_ is a cheese that pleases almost every palate: it is made of the whole milk and cream. _Stilton cheese_ is made by adding the cream of one day to the entire milk of the next: it was first made at Stilton, in Leicestershire. _Sage cheese_ is so called from the practice of colouring some curd with bruised sage, marigold-leaves, and parsley, and mixing this with some uncoloured curd. With the Romans, and during the middle ages, this practice was extensively adopted. _Cheddar cheese_ much resembles Parmesan. It has a very agreeable taste and flavour, and has a spongy appearance. _Brickbat cheese_ has nothing remarkable except its form. It is made by turning with rennet a mixture of cream and new milk. The curd is put into a wooden vessel the shape of a brick, and is then pressed and dried in the usual way. _Dunlop cheese_ has a peculiarly mild and rich taste: the best is made entirely from new milk.

_New cheese_ (as it is called in London) is made chiefly in Lincolnshire, and is either made of all cream, or, like Stilton. by adding the cream of one day's milking to the milk that comes immediately from the cow: they are extremely thin, and are compressed gently two or three times, turned for a few days, and then eaten new with radishes, salad, &c. _Skimmed Milk cheese_ is made for sea voyages princ.i.p.ally.

_Parmesan cheese_ is made in Parma and Piacenza. It is the most celebrated of all cheese: it is made entirely of skimmed cow's milk. The high flavour which it has, is supposed to be owing to the rich herbage of the meadows of the Po, where the cows are pastured. The best Parmesan is kept for three or four years, and none is carried to market till it is at least six months old. _Dutch cheese_ derives its peculiar pungent taste from the practice adopted in Holland of coagulating the milk with muriatic acid instead of rennet. _Swiss cheeses_ in their several varieties are all remarkable for their fine flavour. That from _Gruyere_, a bailiwick in the canton of Fribourg, is best known in England. It is flavoured by the dried herb of _Melilotos officinalis_ in powder. Cheese from milk and potatoes is manufactured in Thuringia and Saxony. _Cream cheese_, although so called, is not properly cheese, but is nothing more than cream dried sufficiently to be cut with a knife.

EGGS.

1623. There is only one opinion as to the nutritive properties of eggs, although the qualities of those belonging to different birds vary somewhat. Those of the common hen are most esteemed as delicate food, particularly when "new-laid." The quality of eggs depends much upon the food given to the hen. Eggs in general are considered most easily digestible when little subjected to the art of cookery. The lightest way of dressing them is by poaching, which is effected by putting them for a minute or two into brisk boiling water: this coagulates the external white, without doing the inner part too much. Eggs are much better when new-laid than a day or two afterwards. The usual time allotted for boiling eggs in the sh.e.l.l is 3 to 3-3/4 minutes: less time than that in boiling water will not be sufficient to solidify the white, and more will make the yolk hard and less digestible: it is very difficult to _guess_ accurately as to the time. Great care should be employed in putting them into the water, to prevent cracking the sh.e.l.l, which inevitably causes a portion of the white to exude, and lets water into the egg. Eggs are often beaten up raw in nutritive beverages.

1624. Eggs are employed in a very great many articles of cookery, entrees, and entremets, and they form an essential ingredient in pastry, creams, flip, &c. It is particularly necessary that they should be quite fresh, as nothing is worse than stale eggs. Cobbett justly says, stale, or even preserved eggs, are things to be run from, not after.

1625. The Metropolis is supplied with eggs from all parts of the kingdom, and they are likewise largely imported from various places on the continent; as France, Holland, Belgium, Guernsey, and Jersey. It appears from official statements mentioned in McCulloch's "Commercial Dictionary," that the number imported from France alone amounts to about 60,000,000 a year; and supposing them on an average to cost fourpence a dozen, it follows that we pay our continental neighbours above 83,000 a year for eggs.

1626. The eggs of different birds vary much in size and colour. Those of the ostrich are the largest: one laid in the menagerie in Paris weighed 2 lbs. 14 oz., held a pint, and was six inches deep: this is about the usual size of those brought from Africa. Travellers describe _ostrich eggs_ as of an agreeable taste: they keep longer than hen's eggs.

Drinking-cups are often made of the sh.e.l.l, which is very strong. The eggs of the _turkey_ are almost as mild as those of the hen; the egg of the _goose_ is large, but well-tasted. _Duck's eggs_ have a rich flavour; the alb.u.men is slightly transparent, or bluish, when set or coagulated by boiling, which requires less time than hen's eggs.

_Guinea-fowl eggs_ are smaller and more delicate than those of the hen.

Eggs of _wild fowl_ are generally coloured, often spotted; and the taste generally partakes somewhat of the flavour of the bird they belong to.

Those of land birds that are eaten, as the _plover, lapwing, ruff_, &c., are in general much esteemed; but those of _sea-fowl_ have, more or less, a strong fishy taste. The eggs of the _turtle_ are very numerous: they consist of yolk only, without sh.e.l.l, and are delicious.

RECIPES.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

SEPARATION OF MILK AND CREAM.

1627. If it be desired that the milk should be freed entirely from cream, it should be poured into a very shallow broad pan or dish, not more than 1-1/2 inch deep, as cream cannot rise through a great depth of milk. In cold and wet weather, milk is not so rich as it is in summer and warm weather, and the morning's milk is always richer than the evening's. The last-drawn milk of each milking, at all times and seasons, is richer than the first-drawn, and on that account should be set apart for cream. Milk should be shaken as little as possible when carried from the cow to the dairy, and should be poured into the pans very gently. Persons not keeping cows, may always have a little cream, provided the milk they purchase be pure and unadulterated. As soon as it comes in, it should be poured into very shallow open pie-dishes, and set by in a very cool place, and in 7 or 8 hours a nice cream should have risen to the surface.

MILK is one of the most complete of all articles of food: that is to say, it contains a very large number of the elements which enter into the composition of the human body. It "disagrees"

with fat, heavy, languid people, of slow circulation; and, at first, with many people of sedentary habits, and stomachs weakened by stimulants of different kinds. But, if exercise can be taken and a little patience shown, while the system accommodates itself to a new regimen, this bland and soothing article of diet is excellent for the majority of thin, nervous people; especially for those who have suffered much from emotional disturbances, or have relaxed their stomachs by too much tea or coffee, taken too hot. Milk is, in fact, a nutrient and a sedative at once. Stomachs, however, have their idiosyncrasies, and it sometimes proves an unwelcome and ill-digested article of food. As milk, when good, contains a good deal of respiratory material (fat),--material which _must_ either be burnt off, or derange the liver, and be rejected in other ways, it may disagree because the lungs are not sufficiently used in the open air. But it is very probable that there are really "const.i.tutions" which cannot take to it; and _they_ should not be forced.

TO KEEP MILK AND CREAM IN HOT WEATHER.