1641. To Keep Apples and Pears Fresh

1641.    To Keep Apples and Pears Fresh. Gather the fruit during a dry day, and put it at once into earthen glazed pans, deep enough to contain two or three layers of fruit, and each pan having a tightly-fitting lid. If the fruit sweats, the exudation dries on the fruit's surface, and helps to keep in the moisture and flavor. The cover helps to do the same, and to exclude the light. Keep the pans in a dry, cool place, and never wipe the fruit until required for dessert. Pears may be kept in the same way, but require careful and constant watching.

1642. To Keep Fruit Fresh

1642.    To Keep Fruit Fresh. After they have been allowed to lay on the shelves in the fruit-room, and sweat, they should be wiped dry, and packed in boxes with dry sawdust enough to exclude the air from them. The saw-dust from resinous woods should not be used. If they were packed in dry sand, they would keep equally, and perhaps better; but the objection is that it is very difficult to clean them from sand, and therefore they always eat gritty when so kept.

1643. Preservation of Fruit in Glycerine

1643.    Preservation of Fruit in Glycerine. Glycerine of purest quality has been recommended for the preservation of fruits; previous to eating which, the glycerine should be removed by immersing the fruit in water.

1644. To Restore and Improve Musty Flour

1644.    To Restore and Improve Musty Flour. Carbonate of magnesia, 3 parts; flour, 760 parts. Mix and use the flour in the usual way. This will not only greatly improve bad flour, but the bread will be much lighter, more wholesome, and keep longer than when alum is used.

1645. To Keep Game

1645.    To Keep Game. Newly ground coffee, sprinkled over game, will keep it sweet and fresh for several days. Clean the game; that is, wipe off the blood, cover the wounded parts with absorbent paper, wrap up the heads, and then sprinkle ground coffee over and amongst the feathers or fur, as the case may be; pack up carefully, and the game will be preserved fresh and sweet in the most unfavorable weather. Game sent open and loose, cannot, of course, be treated in this manner; but all game packed in boxes or hampers may be deodorized as described. A tea-spoonful of coffee is enough for a brace of birds; and in this proportion for more or for larger game.

1646. To Preserve with Creosote

1646.     To Preserve with Creosote. Creosote, a pungent compound existing in common smoke, and which starts the tears when the smoke enters the eyes, is a powerful antiseptic, or preventer of putrefaction. It is employed to preserve animal substances, either by washing it over them or by immersing them in its aqueous solution. A few drops in a saucer, or on a piece of spongy paper, if placed in a larder, will effectually drive away insects, and make the meat keep several days longer than otherwise. By all the modes in which creosote has hitherto been employed in preserving meat, it has acquired a disagreeable taste and smell. This may be obviated by placing a small plate containing a little creosote immediately under each piece of meat as it hangs in the larder, and covering them both over with a cloth. A small quantity added to brine or vinegar is commonly employed to impart a smoky flavor to meat and fish, and its solution in acetic acid is used to give the flavor of Scotch whiskey to plain spirit. The preservative effect of smoke-drying is partially due to creosote, which gives to the meat its peculiar smoky taste, and partly to desiccation.