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Free Books / Cooking / The American Housewife / | |
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This section is from the "The American Housewife" book, by Experienced Lady. Also available from Amazon: The American Housewife.
Gather fragrant, full-blown roses, on a dry day - pick off the leaves, and to each peck of them put a quart of water. Put the whole in a cold still, and set the still on a moderate fire - the slower they are distilled, the better will be the rose-water. Bottle the water as soon as distilled.
Procure a quantity of fresh, fragrant leaves - both the stalk and the flower leaves will answer. Cord very thin layers of cotton, and dip them into fine Florence oil - put alternate layers of the cotton and leaves in a glass jar, or large turn-bier. Sprinkle a very small quantity of fine salt on each layer of the flowers, cover the jar up tight, and place it in a south window, exposed to the heat of the sun. In the course of a fortnight a fragrant oil may be squeezed out of the cotton. Rose leaves, mignonette, and sweet-scented clover, make fine perfumes, managed in this way.
Rose and sweet-scented clover leaves, dried in the shade, then mixed with powdered cloves, cinnamon, mace, and pressed in small bags, are very nice to keep in chests of linen, or drawers of clothes, to perfume them.
Turn a quart of alcohol gradually on to the following oils: a couple of drachms of the oil of rosemary, two of the oil of lemon, or orange-flower water, one drachm of lavender, ten drops of oil of cinnamon, ten of cloves, and a tea-spoonful of rosewater. Keep the whole stopped tight in a bottle - shake it up well. It will do to use as soon as made, but it is much improved by age.
Turn a pint of alcohol slowly on to an ounce and a half of the oil of lavender, two drachms of ambergris. Keep the lavender water in a tight-corked bottle - it should be shook up well when first put in.
Mix with a table-spoonful of vinegar enough powdered chalk to destroy the acidity. Let it settle - then turn off the vinegar from the chalk carefully, and dry it perfectly. Whenever you wish to purify an infected room, put in a few drops of sulphuric acid - the fumes arising from it will purify a room where there has been any infectious disorder. Care is necessary in using it, not to inhale the fumes, or to get any of the acid on your garments, as it will corrode whatever it touches.
Boil a couple of ounces of barley, in two quarts of water, till soft - pearl barley is the best, but the common barley an-swers very well. When soft, strain and mix it with a little currant jelly, to give it a pleasant, acid taste. If the jelly is not liked, turn it, when boiled soft, on to a couple of ounces of figs or raisins, and boil it again, till reduced to one quart, then strain it for use.
Put a large spoonful of unground rice into six gills of boiling water, with a stick of cinnamon or mace. Strain it when boiled soft, and add half a pint of new milk - put in a tea-spoonful of salt, and boil it a few minutes longer. If you wish to make the gruel of rice flour, mix a table-spoonful of it, smoothly, with three of cold water, and stir it into a quart of boiling water. Let it boil, five or six minutes, stirring it constantly. Season it with salt, a little butter, and add, if you like, nutmeg and white sugar to your taste.
Mix a couple of table-spoonsful of Indian meal with one of wheat flour, and sufficient cold water to make a thick batter. If the gruel is liked thick, stir it into a pint of boiling water - if liked thin, more water will be necessary. Season the gruel with salt, and let it boil six or eight minutes, stirring it frequently - then take it from the fire, put in a piece of butter, of the size of a walnut, and pepper to the taste. Turn it on toasted bread, cut in small pieces.
Make rice or water gruel, as above - then strain it, and add half a wine glass of ale, wine, or brandy. Sweeten it with loaf sugar, and grate in a little nutmeg.
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