Care of Food In The Home

1916

All cooked food should be cooled as soon as possible before being placed in the ice box. Butter may be kept from taking up the flavors of other food by keeping it in a tightly covered receptacle. Milk requires more access of air, but in a clean ice box in which no strong smelling food is kept milk should remain uninjured in flavor for twelve to twenty-four hours. If vegetables or other foods of pronounced odor are kept in glass jars with covers or in covered earthenware receptacles there will be fewer odors to be communicated. Portions of canned food should never be put into the ice box in the tin can. Such food does not of necessity develop a poisonous product, as has sometimes been claimed, but experiments show that ptomaines are particularly liable to develop in such cases. Casting out this somewhat remote possibility, keeping is enough to condemn the "tinny" taste acquired by such practice.

Foods that are to be eaten raw, such as lettuce and celery, should be carefully cleaned before being placed in the ice box, and may with advantage be wrapped in a clean, damp cloth. If they are to be kept for some days they should, however, be put in without removing the roots, the further precaution being taken to wrap them carefully in clean paper or to put them into grocers' bags,

The following hints regarding the keeping of different kinds of food may be found useful:

Potatoes are kept without difficulty in a cool, dry, and dark place. Sprouts should not be allowed to grow in the spring.

Such roots as carrots, parsnips, and turnips remain plump and fresh if placed in earth or sand filled boxes on the cellar floor.

Sweet potatoes may be kept until January if cleaned, dried, and packed in chaff so that they will not touch each other.

Pumpkins and squash must be thoroughly ripe and mature to keep well. They should he dried from time to time with a cloth and kept, not on the cellar floor, but on a shelf, and well separated from each other.

Cabbages are to be placed in barrels, with the roots uppermost.

Celery should be neither trimmed nor washed, but packed, heads up, in long, deep boxes, which should then be filled with dry earth.

Tomatoes may be kept until January, if gathered just before frost, wiped, and placed on straw- covered racks in the cellar. They should be firm and well-grown specimens, not yet beginning to turn. As they ripen they may be taken out for table use, and any soft or decaying ones must be removed.

Apples, if for use during the autumn, may be stored in barrels without further precaution than to look them over now and then to remove decaying ones; but if they are to be kept till late winter or spring they must be of a variety known to keep well and they must be handpicked and without blemish or bruise. They should be wiped dry and placed with little crowding on shelves in the cellar. As a further precaution they may be wrapped separately in soft paper.

Pears may be kept for a limited time in the same way, or packed in sawdust or chaff, which absorbs the moisture which might otherwise favor molding.

Oranges and lemons are kept in the same way. Wrapping in soft paper is here essential, as the uncovered skins if bruised offer good feeding ground for mold. Oranges may be kept for a long time in good condition if stored where it is very cold but where freezing is not possible.

Lemons and limes are often kept in brine, an old-fashioned household method.

Cranberries, after careful looking over to remove soft ones, are placed in a crock or firkin and covered with water. A plate or round board placed on top and weighted serves to keep the berries under water. The water should be changed once a month.

In winter large pieces of fresh meat may be purchased and hung in the cellar; thin pieces, as mutton chops, are sometimes dipped in mutton suet, which keeps the surface from drying and is easily scraped off before cooking.

Turkeys, chickens and other birds should be carefully drawn as soon as killed and without washing hung in the coolest available place.

Smoked ham, tongue, beef, and fish are best put in linen bags and hung in the cellar.

Salt pork and corned beef should be kept in brine in suitable jars, kegs or casks, and should be weighted so as to remain well covered. A plate or board weighted with a clean stone is an old-fashioned and satisfactory device.

Eggs may be packed for winter use in limewater or in water-glass solution. Many housekeepers have good success in packing them in bran, oats, or in dry salt, but according to experiments summarized in the aforementioned bulletin, the preference is to be given to the 10 per cent solution of water glass. Exclusion of the air with its accompanying micro-organisms and the prevention of drying out are what is sought in all cases. Packed eggs are not equal to fresh eggs in flavor, but when they are well packed are of fairly good quality and perfectly wholesome.

Paper has many uses in the kitchen. The cook needs a piece of paper on which to drain the fried croquette or fritter and she reaches out for the brown paper that came around the meat or for the grocer's bag. She turns to the same source when she wishes paper for lining a cake pan. A little reflection will show how far from cleanly is this practice.

In every kitchen should be found a roll of grocers' paper on its frame. You are sure here of something that has not been handled since it was rolled up by machinery in the factory. Paraffin paper should also be at hand for covering food, for wrapping up sandwiches for school lunches, and for similar purposes. — Maine Farmer.