Original White House Cookbook

TO CLEAN SILVER PLATE. Wash well in strong, warm soap-suds, rinse and wipe dry with a dry, soft cloth ; then mix as much hartshorn powder as will be required into a thick paste, with cold water ; spread this over the silver, with a soft cloth, and leave it for a little time to dry. When perfectly dry, brush it off with a clean soft cloth, or brush and polish it with a piece of chamois skin. Hartshorn is one of the best possible ingredients for plate powder for daily use. It leaves on the silver a deep, dark polish, and at the same time does not injure it. Whiting, dampened with liquid ammonia, is excellent also. TO REMOVE STAINS FROM MARBLE. Mix together one-half pound of soda, one-half pound of soft soap and one pound of whiting. Boil them until they become as thick as paste, and let it cool. Before it is quite cold, spread it over the surface of the marble and leave it at least a whole day. Use soft water to wash it off, and rub it well with soft cloths. For a black marble, nothing is better than spirits of turpentine. Another paste answers the same purpose : Take two parts of soda, one of pumice stone and one of finely-powdered chalk. Sift these through a fine sieve and mix them into a paste with water. Rub this well all over the marble and the stains will be removed ; then wash it with soap and water and a beautiful bright polish will be produced. TO WHITEN WALLS. To WHITEN walls, scrape off all the old whitewash, and wash the walls with a solution of two ounces of white vitriol to four gallons of water. Soak a quarter of a pound of white glue in water for twelve hours ; strain and place in a tin pail in a kettle of boiling water. When melted, stir in the glue eight pounds of whiting and water enough to make it as thick as common whitewash. Apply evenly with a good brush. If the walls are very yellow, blue the water slightly by squeezing in it a flannel blue-bag. Before kalsomining a wall, all cracks should be plastered over. Use plaster of Paris. Kalsomine may be colored easily by mixing with it yellow ochre, Spanish brown, indigo; squeeze through a bag into the water, etc. PAPER-HANGERS’ PASTE. To MAKE paper-hangers’ paste, beat up four pounds of good, white wheat flour (well sifted previously) in sufficient cold water to form a stiff batter. Beat it well in order take out all lumps, and then add enough cold water to make the mixture of the consistency of pudding batter. To this add about two ounces of well-pounded alum. Pour gently and quickly over the batter boiling water, stirring rapidly at the same time, and when it is seen to lose the white color of the flour, it is cooked and ready. Do not use it, however, while hot, but allow it to cool. Pour about a pint of cold water over the top to prevent a skin from forming. Before using, the paste should be thinned by the addition of cold water. TO WASH COLORED GARMENTS. Delicately colored socks and stockings are apt to fade in washing. If they are soaked for a night in a pail of tepid water containing a half pint of turpentine, then wrung out and dried, the colors will “set,” and they can afterwards be washed without fading. For calicoes that fade, put a teaspoonful of sugar of lead into a pailful of water and soak the garment fifteen minutes before washing. THE MARKING SYSTEM.