Various - "Up To Date Business"

AEschylus - "Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays"

John A. Joyce - "Shakspere, Personal Recollections"

Various - "Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches

E >> Eliza Leslie >> Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches





SCARLET BEANS.

It is not generally known that the pod of the scarlet bean, if
green and young, is extremely nice when cut into three or four
pieces and boiled. They will require near two hours, and must be
drained well, and mixed as before mentioned with butter and
pepper. If gathered at the proper time, when the seed is just
perceptible, they are superior to any of the common beans.


LIMA BEANS.

These are generally considered the finest of all beans, and should
be gathered young. Shell them, lay them in a pan of cold water,
and then boil them about two hours, or till they are quite soft.
Drain them well, and add to them some butter and a little pepper.

They are destroyed by the first frost, but can be kept during the
winter, by gathering them on a dry day when full grown but not the
least hard, and putting them in their pods into a keg. Throw some
salt into the bottom of the keg, and cover it with a layer of the
bean-pods; then add more salt, and then another layer of beans,
till the keg is full. Press them down with a heavy weight, cover
the keg closely, and keep it in a cool dry place. Before you use
them, soak the pods all night in cold water; the next day shell
them, and soak the beans till you are ready to boil them.


DRIED BEANS.

Wash them and lay them in soak over night. Early in the morning
put them into a pot with plenty of water, and boil them slowly
till dinner time. They will require seven or eight hours to be
sufficiently done. Then take them off, put them into a sieve, and
strain off the liquid.

Send the beans to table in a deep dish, seasoned with pepper, and
having a piece of butter mixed with them.


GREEN PEAS.

Green peas are unfit for eating after they become hard and
yellowish; but they are better when nearly full grown than when
very small and young. They should be gathered as short a time as
possible before they are cooked, and laid in cold water as soon as
they are shelled. They will require about an hour to boil soft.
When quite done, drain them, mix with them a piece of butter, and
add a little pepper.

Peas may be greatly improved by boiling with them two or three
lumps of loaf-sugar, and a sprig of mint to be taken out before
they are dished. This is an English way of cooking green peas, and
is to most tastes a very good one.


TO BOIL ONIONS.

Take off the tops and tails, and the thin outer skin; but no
more lest the onions should go to pieces. Lay them on the bottom
of a pan which is broad enough to contain them without piling one
on another; just cover them with water, and let them simmer slowly
till they are tender all through, but not till they break.

Serve them up with melted butter.


TO ROAST ONIONS.

Onions are best when parboiled before roasting. Take large onions,
place them on a hot hearth and roast them before the fire in their
skins, turning them as they require it. Then peel them, send them
to table whole, and eat them with butter and salt.


TO FRY ONIONS.

Peel, slice them, and fry them brown in butter or nice dripping.

Onions should be kept in a very dry place, as dampness injures
them.


TO BOIL ASPARAGUS.

Large or full grown asparagus is the best. Before you begin to
prepare it for cooking, set on the fire a pot with plenty of
water, and sprinkle into it a handful of salt. Your asparagus
should be all of the same size. Scrape the stalks till they are
perfectly nice and white; cut them all of equal length, and short,
so as to leave them but two or three inches below the green part.
To serve up asparagus with long stalks is now becoming obsolete.
As you scrape them, throw them into a pan of cold water. Then tie
them up in small bundles with bass or tape, as twine will cut them
to pieces. When the water is boiling fast, put in the asparagus,
and boil it an hour; if old it will require an hour and a quarter.
When it is nearly done boiling, toast a large slice of bread
sufficient to cover the dish (first cutting off the crust) and dip
it into the asparagus water in the pot. Lay it in a dish, and,
having drained the asparagus, place it on the toast with all the
heads pointed inwards towards the centre, and the stalks spreading
outwards. Serve up melted butter with it.


SEA KALE.

Sea kale is prepared, boiled, and served up in the same manner as
asparagus.


POKE.

The young stalks and leaves of the poke-berry plant when quite
small and first beginning to sprout up from the ground in the
spring, are by most persons considered very nice, and are
frequently brought to market. If the least too old they acquire a
strong taste, and should not be eaten, as they then become
unwholesome. They are in a proper state when the part of the stalk
nearest to the ground is not thicker than small asparagus. Scrape
the stalks, (letting the leaves remain on them,) and throw them
into cold water. Then tie up the poke in bundles, put it into a
pot that has plenty of boiling water, and let it boil fast an hour
at least. Serve it up with or without toast, and send melted
butter with, it in a boat.


STEWED TOMATAS.

Peel your tomatas, cut them in half and squeeze out the seeds.
Then put them into a stew-pan without any water, and add to them
cayenne and salt to your taste, (and if you choose,) a little
minced onion, and some powdered mace, Stew them slowly till they
are first dissolved and then dry.


BAKED TOMATAS

Peel some large fine tomatas, cut them up, and take out the seeds.
Then put them into a deep dish in alternate layers with grated
bread-crumbs, and a very little butter in small bits. There must be
a large proportion of bread-crumbs. Season the whole with a little
salt, and cayenne pepper. Set it in an oven, and bake it. In
cooking tomatas, take care not to have them too liquid.


MUSHROOMS.

Good mushrooms are only found in clear open fields where the air
is pure and unconfined. Those that grow in low damp ground, or in
shady places, are always poisonous. Mushrooms of the proper sort
generally appear in August and September, after a heavy dew or a
misty night. They may be known by their being of a pale pink or
salmon colour on the gills or under side, while the top is of a
dull pearl-coloured white; and by their growing only in open
places. When they are a day old, or a few hours after they are
gathered, the reddish colour changes to brown.

The poisonous or false mushrooms are of various colours, sometimes
of a bright yellow or scarlet all over; sometimes entirely of a
chalky white stalk, top, and gills.

It is easy to detect a bad mushroom if all are quite fresh; but
after being gathered a few hours the colours change, so that
unpractised persons frequently mistake them.

It is said that if you boil an onion among mushrooms the onion
will turn of a bluish black when there is a bad one among them. Of
course, the whole should then be thrown into the fire. If in
stirring mushrooms, the colour of the silver spoon is changed, it
is also most prudent to destroy them all.


TO STEW MUSHROOMS.

For this purpose the small button mushrooms are best. Wash them
clean, peel off the skin, and cut off the stalks. Put the
trimmings into a small sauce-pan with just enough water to keep
them from burning, and, covering them closely, let them stew a
quarter of an hour. Then strain the liquor, and having put the
mushrooms into a clean sauce-pan, (a silver one, or one lined with
porcelain,) add the liquid to them with a little nutmeg, pepper
and salt, and a piece of butter rolled in flour. Stew them fifteen
minutes, and just before you take them up, stir in a very little
cream or rich milk and some beaten yolk of egg. Serve them hot.
While they are cooking, keep the pan as closely covered as
possible.

If you wish to have the full taste of the mushroom only, after
washing, trimming, and peeling them, put them into a stew-pan with
a little salt and no water. Set them on coals, and stew them
slowly till tender, adding nothing to them but a little butter
rolled in flour, or else a little cream. Be sure to keep the pan
well covered.


BROILED MUSHROOMS.

For this purpose take large mushrooms, and be careful to have them
freshly gathered. Peel them, score the under side, and cut off the
stems. Lay them one by one in an earthen pan, brushing them over
with sweet oil or oiled butter, and sprinkling each with a little
pepper and salt. Cover them closely, and let them set for about an
hour and a half. Then place them on a gridiron over clear hot
coals, and broil them on both sides.

Make a gravy for them of their trimmings stewed in a very little
water, strained and thickened with a beaten egg stirred in just
before it goes to table.


BOILED RICE.

Pick your rice clean, and wash it in two cold waters, not draining
off the last water till you are ready to put the rice on the fire.
Prepare a sauce-pan of water with a little salt in it, and when it
boils, sprinkle in the rice. Boil it hard twenty minutes, keeping
it covered. Then take it from the fire, and pour off the water.
Afterwards set the sauce-pan in the chimney-corner with the lid
off, while you are dishing your dinner, to allow the rice to dry,
and the grains to separate.

Rice, if properly boiled, should be soft and white, and every
grain ought to stand alone. If badly managed, it will, when
brought to table, be a grayish watery mass.

In most southern families, rice, is boiled every day for the
dinner table, and eaten with the meat and poultry.

The above is a Carolina receipt.


TO DRESS LETTUCE AS SALAD.

Strip off the outer leaves, wash the lettuce, split it in half,
and lay it in cold water till dinner time. Then drain it and put
it into a salad dish. Have ready two eggs boiled hard, (which they
will be in twelve minutes,) and laid in a basin of cold water for
five minutes to prevent the whites from turning blue. Cut them in
half, and lay them on the lettuce.

Put the yolks of the eggs on a large plate, and with a wooden
spoon mash them smooth, mixing with them a table-spoonful of
water, and two table-spoonfuls of sweet oil. Then add, by degrees,
a salt-spoonful of salt, a tea-spoonful of mustard, and a tea-spoonful
of powdered loaf-sugar. When these are all smoothly
united, add very gradually three table-spoonfuls of vinegar. The
lettuce having been cut up fine on another plate, put it to the
dressing, and mix it well.

If you have the dressing for salad made before a dinner, put it
into the bottom of the salad dish; then (having cut it up) lay the
salad upon it, and let it rest till it is to be eaten, as stirring
it will injure it.

You may decorate the top of the salad with slices of red beet, and
with the hard white of the eggs cut into rings.


CELERY.

Scrape and wash it well, and let it lie in cold water till shortly
before it goes to table; then dry it in a cloth, trim it, and
split down the stalks almost to the bottom, leaving on a few green
leaves. Send it to table in a celery glass, and eat it with salt
only; or chop it fine, and make a salad dressing for it.


RADISHES.

To prepare radishes for eating, wash them and lay them in clean
cold water as soon as they are brought in. Shortly before they go
to table, scrape off the thin outside skin, trim the sharp end,
cut off the leaves at the top, leaving the stalks about an inch
long, and put them on a small dish. Eat them with salt.

Radishes should not be eaten the day after they are pulled, as
they are extremely unwholesome if not quite fresh.

The thick white radishes, after being scraped and trimmed, should
be split or cleft in four, half way down from the top.


TO ROAST CHESTNUTS.

The large Spanish chestnuts are the best for roasting. Cut a slit
in the shell of every one to prevent their bursting when hot. Put
them into a pan, and set them over a charcoal furnace till they
are thoroughly roasted; stirring them up frequently and taking
care hot to let them burn. When they are done, peel off the
shells, and send the chestnuts to table wrapped up in a napkin to
keep them warm.

Chestnuts should always be roasted or boiled before they are
eaten.


GROUND-NUTS.

These nuts are never eaten raw. Put them, with their shells on,
into an iron pan, and set them in an oven; or you may do them in a
skillet on hot coals. A large quantity may be roasted in an iron
pot over the fire. Stir them frequently, taking one out from time
to time, and breaking it to try if they are done.




EGGS, &c.


TO KEEP EGGS.

There is no infallible mode of ascertaining the freshness of an
egg before you break it, but unless an egg is perfectly good, it
is unfit for any purpose whatever, and will spoil whatever it is
mixed with. You may judge with tolerable accuracy of the state of
an egg by holding it against the sun or the candle, and if the
yolk, as you see it through the shell, appears round, and the
white thin and clear, it is most probably a good one; but if the
yolk looks broken, and the white thick and cloudy, the egg is
certainly bad. You may try the freshness of eggs by putting them
into a pan of cold water. Those that sink the soonest are the
freshest; those that are stale or addled will float on the
surface.

There are various ways of preserving eggs. To keep them merely for
plain boiling, you may parboil them for one minute, and then bury
them in powdered charcoal with their small ends downward. They
will keep a few days in ajar of salt; but do not afterwards use
the salt in which they have been immersed.

They are frequently preserved for two or three months by greasing
them all over, when quite fresh, with melted mutton suet, and then
wedging them close together (the small end downwards) in a box of
bran, layer above layer; the box must be closely covered.

Another way (and a very good one) is to put some lime in a large
vessel, and slack it with boiling water, till it is of the
consistence of thin cream; you may allow a gallon of water to a
pound of lime. When it is cold, pour it off into a large stone
jar, put in the eggs, and cover the jar closely. See that the eggs
are always well covered with the lime-water, and lest they should
break, avoid moving the jar. If you have hens of your own, keep a
jar of lime-water always ready, and put in the eggs as they are
brought in from the nests. Jars that hold about six quarts are the
most convenient.

It will be well to renew the lime-water occasionally.


TO BOIL EGGS FOR BREAKFAST.

The fresher they are the longer time
they will require for boiling. If you wish them quite soft, put
them into a sauce-pan of water that is boiling hard at the moment,
and let them remain in it five minutes. The longer they boil the
harder they will be. In ten minutes' fast boiling they will be
hard enough for salad.

If you use one of the tin egg-boilers that are placed on the
table, see that the water is boiling hard at the time you put in
the eggs. When they have been in about four or five minutes, take
them out, pour off the water, and replace it by some more that is
boiling hard; as, from the coldness of the eggs having chilled the
first water, they will not otherwise be done enough. The boiler
may then be placed on the table, (keeping the lid closed,) and in
a few minutes more they will be sufficiently cooked to be
wholesome.


TO POACH EGGS.

Pour some boiling water out of a tea kettle through a clean cloth
spread over the top of a broad stew-pan; for by observing this
process the eggs will be nicer and more easily done than when its
impurities remain in the water. Set the pan with the strained
water on hot coals, and when it boils break each egg separately
into a saucer. Remove the pan from the fire, and slip the eggs one
by one into the surface of the water. Let the pan stand till the
white of the eggs is set; then place it again on the coals, and as
soon as the water boils again, the eggs will be sufficiently done.
Take them out carefully with an egg-slice, and trim off all the
ragged edges from the white, which should thinly cover the yolk.
Have ready some thin slices of buttered toast with the crust cut
off. Lay them in the bottom of the dish, with a poached egg on
each slice of toast, and send them to the breakfast table.


FRICASSEED EGGS.

Take a dozen eggs, and boil them six or seven minutes, or till
they are just hard enough to peel and slice without breaking. Then
put them into a pan of cold water while you prepare some grated
bread-crumbs, (seasoned with pepper, salt and nutmeg,) and beat the
yolks of two or three raw eggs very light. Take the boiled eggs
out of the water, and having peeled off the shells, slice the
eggs, dust a little flour over them, and dip them first into the
beaten egg, and then into the bread-crumbs so as to cover them well
on both sides. Have ready in a frying-pan some boiling lard; put
the sliced eggs into it, and fry them on both sides. Serve them up
at the breakfast table, garnished with small sprigs of parsley
that has been fried in the same lard after the eggs were taken
out.


PLAIN OMELET.

Take six eggs, leaving out the whites of two. Beat them very
light, and strain them through a sieve. Add pepper and salt to
your taste. Divide two ounces of fresh butter into little bits,
and put it into the egg. Have ready a quarter of a pound of butter
in a frying-pan, or a flat stew-pan. Place it on hot coals, and
have the butter boiling when you put in the beaten egg. Fry it
gently till of a light brown on the under side. Do not turn it
while cooking as it will do better without. You may brown the top
by holding a hot shovel over it. When done, lay it in the dish,
double it in half, and stick sprigs of curled parsley over it.

You may flavour the omelet by mixing with the beaten egg some
parsley or sweet herbs minced fine, some chopped celery, or
chopped onion, allowing two moderate sized onions to an omelet of
six eggs. Or what is still better, it may be seasoned with veal
kidney or sweet-bread minced; with cold ham shred as fine as
possible; or with minced oysters, (the hard part omitted,) with
tops of asparagus (that has been previously boiled) cut into small
pieces.

You should have one of the pans that are made purposely for
omelets.


AN OMELETTE SOUFFLE.

Break eight eggs, separate the whites from the yolks, and strain
them. Put the whites into one pan, and the yolks into another, and
beat them separately with rods till the yolks are very thick and
smooth, and the whites a stiff froth that will stand alone. Then
add gradually to the yolks, three quarters of a pound of the
finest powdered loaf-sugar, and orange-flower water or lemon-juice
to your taste. Next stir the whites lightly into the yolks. Butter
a deep pan or dish (that has been previously heated) and pour the
mixture rapidly into it. Set it in a Butch oven with coals under
it, and on the top, and bake it five minutes. If properly beaten
and mixed, and carefully baked, it will rise very high. Send it
immediately to table, or it will fall and flatten.

Do not begin to make an omelette souffle till the company at table
have commenced their dinner, that it may be ready to serve up just
in time, immediately on the removal of the meats. The whole must
be accomplished as quickly as possible, and it must be cut and
sent round directly that it is brought to table.

If you live in a large town, the safest way of avoiding a failure
in an omelette souffle is to hire a French cook to come to your
kitchen with his own utensils and ingredients, and make and bake
it himself, while the first part of the dinner is progressing in
the dining room.

An omelette souffle is a very nice and delicate thing when
properly managed; but if flat and heavy it should not be brought
to table.


TO DRESS MACCARONI.

Have ready a pot of boiling water. Throw a little salt into it,
and then by slow degrees put in a pound of the maccaroni, a little
at a time. Keep stirring it gently, and continue to do so very
often while boiling. Take care to keep it well covered with water.
Have ready a kettle of boiling water to replenish the maccaroni
pot if it should be in danger of getting too dry. In about twenty
minutes it will be done. It must be quite soft, but it must not
boil long enough to break.

When the maccaroni has boiled sufficiently, pour in immediately a
little cold water, and let it stand a few minutes, keeping it
covered.

Grate half a pound of Parmesan cheese into a deep dish, and
scatter over it a few small bits of butter. Then with a skimmer
that is perforated with holes, commence taking up the maccaroni,
(draining it well,) and spread a layer of it over the cheese and
butter. Spread over it another layer of grated cheese and butter,
and then a layer of maccaroni and so on till your dish is full;
having a layer of maccaroni on the top, over which spread some
butter without cheese. Cover the dish, and set it in an oven for
half an hour. It will then be ready to send to table.

You may grate some nutmeg over each, layer of maccaroni.

Allow half a pound of butter to a pound of maccaroni and half a
pound of cheese.




PICKLING


GENERAL REMARKS.

Never on any consideration use brass, copper, or bell-metal
settles for pickling; the verdigris produced in them by the
vinegar being of a most poisonous nature. Kettles lined with
porcelain are the best, but if you cannot procure them, block tin
may be substituted. Iron is apt to discolour any acid that is
boiled in it.

Vinegar for pickles should always be of the very best kind. In
putting away pickles, use stone, or glass jars. The lead which is
an ingredient in the glazing of common earthenware, is rendered
very pernicious by the action of the vinegar. Have a large wooden
spoon and a fork, for the express purpose of taking pickles out of
the jar when you want them for the table. See that, while in the
jar, they are always completely covered with vinegar. If you
discern in them any symptoms of not keeping well, do them over
again in fresh vinegar and spice.

Vinegar for pickles should only boil five or six minutes.

The jars should be stopped with large flat corks, fitting closely,
and having a leather or a round piece of oil-cloth tied over the
cork.

It is a good rule to have two-thirds of the jar filled with
pickles, and one-third with vinegar.

Alum is very useful in extracting the salt taste from pickles, and
in making them firm and crisp. A very small quantity is
sufficient. Too much will spoil them.

In greening pickles keep them very closely covered, so that none
of the steam may escape; as its retention promotes their greenness
and prevents the flavour from evaporating.

Vinegar and spice for pickles should be boiled but a few minutes.
Too much boiling takes away the strength.


TO PICKLE CUCUMBERS.

Cucumbers for pickling should be very small, and as free from
spots as possible. Make a brine of salt and water strong enough to
bear an egg. Pour it over your cucumbers, cover them with fresh
cabbage leaves, and let them stand for a week, or till they are
quite yellow, stirring them at least twice a day. When they are
perfectly yellow, pour off the water. Take a porcelain kettle, and
cover the bottom and sides with fresh vine leaves. Put in the
cucumbers (with a small piece of alum) and cover them closely with
vine leaves all over the top, and then with a dish or cloth to
keep in the steam. Fill up the kettle with clear water, and hang
it over the fire when dinner is done, but not where there is a
blaze. The fire under the kettle must be kept very moderate. The
water must not boil, or be too hot to bear your hand in. Keep them
over the fire in a slow heat till next morning. If they are not
then of a fine green, repeat the process. When they are well
greened, take them out of the kettle, drain them on a sieve, and
put them into a clean stone jar. Boil for five or six minutes
sufficient of the best vinegar to cover the cucumbers well;
putting into the kettle a thin muslin bag filled with cloves,
mace, and mustard seed. Pour the vinegar scalding hot into the jar
of pickles, which should be secured with a large flat cork, and an
oil-cloth or leather cover tied over it. Another way to green
pickles is to cover them with vine leaves or cabbage leaves, and
to keep them on a warm, hearth pouring boiling water on them five
or six times a day; renewing the water as soon as it becomes cold.

In proportioning the spice to the vinegar, allow to every two
quarts, an ounce of mace, two dozen cloves, and two ounces of
mustard seed. You may leave the muslin bag, with the spice, for
about a week in the pickle jar to heighten the flavour, if you
think it necessary.


GREEN PEPPERS.

May be done in the same manner as cucumbers, only extracting the
seeds before you put the pickles into the salt and water. Do not
put peppers into the same jar with cucumbers, as the former will
destroy the latter.


GHERKINS.

The gherkin is a small thick oval-shaped species of cucumber with
a hairy or prickly surface, and is cultivated solely for pickling.
It is customary to let the stems remain on them. Wipe them dry,
put them into a broad stone jar, and scald them five or six times
in the course of the day with salt and water strong enough to bear
an egg, and let them set all night. This will make them yellow.
Next day, having drained them from the salt and water, throw it
out, wipe them dry, put them into a clean vessel (with a little
piece of alum,) and scald them with boiling vinegar and water,
(half and half of each,) repeating it frequently during the day
till they are green. Keep them as closely covered as possible.
Then put them away in stone jars, mixing among them whole mace and
sliced ginger to your taste. Fill up with cold vinegar, and add a
little alum, allowing to every hundred gherkins a piece about the
size of a shelled almond. The alum will make them firm and crisp.

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