CELLARS SHOULD BE PAVED AND NOT BOARDED. also serve the purpose of condiments, especially ginger, which, in the familiar guise of gingerbread, often does good - The 781. Affinities of Food. chemical affinities and contrasts requisite in food are promoted by special selections, determined a good deal by custom and sanctioned by science. The best vegetables to go with fat bacon or pork are peas, beans, and lentils. Here the instinct of domestic life has been singularly correct in establishing the custom of eating peasepudding with boiled pork. An acceptable accompaniment for any kind of vegetable is beef, but investigation would seem to favour potatoes and cabbage as the right things to go with it. 131 Boiled Ricc has been much recommended of late years as an agreeable change in lieu of the more ordinary dinner vegetables. Where it is liked it is said to be most appropriately eaten with mutton, either roast or cooked with it in a stew. Fat Bacon.-As an appropriate mixture of food, the custom of serving fat bacon or ham with veal is fully sanctioned by scientific criticism. 1 782. Intoxicating Liquors. There are abundant reasons why many individuals should refrain from intoxicating liquors of every description. There are motives for this quite apart from drunkenness, for some persons undoubtedly suffer in other respects from the use of beverages which, to all appearance, are beneficial to others. 783. Port Wine and Gout.There are cases of persons subject to gout, with whom one glass of port wine will bring on a serious attack. 784. Evils of Malt Liquor.A moderate quantity of malt liquor will cause, in some persons, very distressing derangements of the liver or other organs. 785. Exceptional Cases.-Such cases are entirely independent of the alcohol in wine and beer, because it often occurs that the very same persons derive evident advantages from modewho can drink wine or beer with perrate quantities of spirits. Others, again, fect impunity, and apparently derive advantages from doing so, cannot drink spirits without undoubted injury. 786. Advantages of Abstinence. - It is equally certain that there are persons who are better in general health without any alcoholic beverages, for reasons peculiar to themselves, that do not apply to the generality of people. 787. Alcohol Non-nutritious.It is asserted that alcohol will not contribute, in the slightest degree, to the permanent fabric of the body, and from that it is inferred that it is useless. The assertion is quite true, but the inference THUNDER IS APT TO SPOIL WINE AS WELL AS BEER. 132 ROASTING MEAT MUST BE PROTECTED FROM CURRENTS OF AIR. is unsound. Fat, sugar, and starch, the primary bases of carbonaceous food, will not contribute a particle to the permanent fabric of the body, and yet some one or more of those substances are essential to life, and cannot be discontinued with impunity. per 788. Alcohol Unnecessary. No living being, it is said, can subsist exclusively upon alcohol. That is fectly true; but that is no evidence that it cannot assist in promoting and sustaining the vital forces; for no living being can subsist exclusively upon either starch or sugar, but one or both are thoroughly well known to be essential to every life that is not prepared to adopt fat as an exclusive substitute. 789. Wine contains, in addition to alcohol, considerable proportions of the alkalies and acids that form the secondary elements of animal existence, as before described. This is especially the case with the heavier wines, amongst which port is most prominently known, and it seems to be the excess of special alkalies combined in that wine that is such a fruitful cause of gout, with which alcohol, as such, has nothing to do. 790. Beer, when genuine, is the result of fermentation from the sugar in the malt, with the addition of hops to preserve it. Genuine beer, in addition to the alcohol, contains acid and alkaline elements corresponding to those in wine, but peculiar to malt as distinguished from grapes and other fruit. To this is added the aromatic and other properties derived from the hops. Long experience has proved that great merits of their own attach to genuine beer. 791. Fusil Oil-In the distillation of spirits of all kinds there is evolved, and unavoidably mixed with the alco hol, a poisonous product called fusil oil. Upon all who drink it it has a most pernicious action, over and above, and quite distinct from, the alcohol. The effect upon some constitutions is terribly mischievous, and to it is ascribable the cases of furious violence, and other alarming symptoms, that some times follow the drinking of drams of new spirit, for it is only in new spirit that this oil exists. The effect of time is for the spirit to gradually destroy the oil, and no spirit is maturely fit for consumption until the destruction of the oil is so completed. 792. Effects of Alcohol.-The action of alcohol is two-fold. It operates upon the nervous system, and thence upon the brain, as a quickener and stimulant, beneficially or otherwise, according to quantity and the character of the individual. Simulta neously it performs the office of carbonaceous food, supplying with great rapidity the means of respiration or combustion in the lungs. Up to the point of a proper quantity for the individual it is beneficial; beyond that point its action is reversed, and becomes mischievous in an increasing ratio. In common with fire and water, alcohol is a good servant, but a fearfully tyrannical master. The last observation applies especially to spirits. As cordials they often confer great benefit, but taken in excess they excite inflammation of the stomach, serious affections of the brain, delirium tremens, epilepsy, apoplexy, and innumerable other derangements, the lungs and consequent wasting of including inordinate combustion through vital energy. Still worse is the case when the effect is to reduce or overexcite the action of the brain, so as to and to deaden the influence of moral permanently impair intellectual force sentiments. Premature old age is amongst the least of the evils that may result, for the greatest mischiefs are those that degrade the exalted tendencies of the healthy mind and destroy the most estimable of social relationships. Of the victim of such a course it has been written: "Despised, unwept, you fall, who might have left A sacred, cherished, sadly pleasing name: MILK SHOULD NEVER BE TAKEN IN CONJUNCTION WITH FISH. THE GUIDANCE OF THE HOUSEHOLD: FROM THE KITCHEN TO THE BANQUETING HALL; FROM BREAKFAST TO SUPPER; FOR THE FAMILY AND FOR GUESTS. 793. Kitchen Furniture.-Com- | kitchen, as affecting matters of utility, fort and elegance being the avowed motives for furnishing sitting-rooms of various kinds, some persons, too much impressed with the hopelessness of either comfort or elegance in a kitchen, are prone to put up with anything that can be made to do in that department. But the truth is that the furniture of a is of more practical importance than the furniture of any other part of the house; for, with inferior and makeshift fittings, utensils, and furniture in a kitchen, it is impossible to do justice to the work that has to be done there, or to do it creditably except by acci dent. RADISHES MAY BE SATISFACTORILY COOKED AND SERVED LIKE ASPARAGUS. 134 CORKS OF INFERIOR QUALITY SHOULD NOT BE TOLERATED. 794. The First Consideration.Those who value their stomachs, to say nothing of the convenience of their servants, will make the reasonable and considerate equipment of the kitchen a first consideration, and will generally be well rewarded by the foresight. 795. Kitcheners.-The kind of fireplace to which the name of kitchener is applied is universally esteemed for the convenience and cleanliness of the hot-plate, free from smoke, but in other respects the testimony is not unani mous. 796. Want of Ventilation. — Where every part of the fitting is totally closed, there is often a serious want of ventilation; that may be obviated where desired by various modes of contriving open communication with the chimney. 797. Roasting in an Enclosure. -The principle of a well-made kitchener with regard to roasting is that meat can be roasted in an enclosure re sembling an oven. The oven, if properly made, is fitted with a ventilating contrivance, which alters its character, and converts it into a veritable roaster, that cooks by roasting, and not by baking. This, however, is what many people will not take the trouble to understand, and therefore they never arrive at the truth that such roasting, if properly conducted, is the best of all cooking. of water, according to size. The corner of the inner pan is cut off, to allow of the water being poured in. The space allowed for the water being nearly filled, the fat and gravy that drops upon the inner pan will not dry up or burn, consequently the objectionable odour does not arise; the meat is therefore as sweet as when cooked before the fire, and the gravy and dripping, not being liable to receive the ashes and cinders inseparable from an open fire, is of the best possible quality, the dripping being distinguished by a degree of purity and whiteness unattainable by any other process. 800. List of Kitchen Requisites. 798. Objections to Kitcheners. -A kitchener may be badly constructed or badly fitted, and, consequently, inefficient; but the most usual objection is the result of bad management. Good management implies a knowledge of the construction of the kitchener, and sense and nicety enough to keep the flues suf--Perhaps there are no two kitchens in ficiently free from soot, and the roaster free from dirt. When this management is successful, the highest satisfaction is the invariable result; but very frequently the management is neither sensible nor successful, and then there is no help for it but to roast before the existence furnished alike, the variety of requirement and choice being without end. The following list is, therefore, given, not with any idea of adopting it in its entirety, but only to select from as occasion may suggest, with the aid of the illustrations on succeeding pages: INGREDIENTS FOR CAKES SHOULD FIRST BE ALL WARMED FOR ONE HOUR. REAL WATER-CRESSES ARE DEEP GREEN SPOTTED WITH BROWN. 135 sings .£23 13 5 That, like the fabling Nile, no fountain "The whisper'd tale, 801. Choice of Acquaintances | all-necessary to beware, as Thomson is very important to the happiness of a mistress and her family, and upon this depends much of the management or mismanagement to which every household is subject. 802. A Gossipping Acquaintance, who indulges in scandal and the ridicule of her neighbours, should be avoided as a pestilence. It is likewise knows; Fair-faced Deceit, whose wily, conscious eye Ne'er looks direct; the tongue that licks the dust But, when it safely dares, as prompt to sting." 803. Friendships should not be Hastily Formed, or the heart given, MEAT SHOULD NEVER BE WASHED, BUT WIPED WITH A DRY CLOTH. |