Cooking Utensils
- Cleanliness has been aptly styled the cardinal virtue of cooks. Food is more healthy, as well as palatable, cooked in a cleanly manner. Many lives have been lost in consequence of carelessness in using brass, copper, and glazed earthen cooking utensils. The two first should be thoroughly cleansed with salt and hot vinegar before cooking in them, and no oily or acid substance, after being cooked, should be allowed to cool or remain in any of them. - Durable Ink for Marking Linen. Dissolve a couple of drachms of lunar caustic, and half an ounce of gum Arabic, in a gill of rain water. Dip whatever is to be marked in strong pearlash water. When perfectly dry, iron it very smooth; the pearlash water turns it a dark color, but washing will efface it. After marking the linen, put it near a fire, or in the sun, to dry. Red ink, for marking linen, is made by mixing and reducing to a fine powder half an ounce of vermillion, a drachm of the salt of steel, and linseed oil to render it of the consistency of black, durable ink.