FoodNetArchive

Original White House Cookbook

1887

Page 355

Presented as published in 1887. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
another handful or so of new coals on the red spot, and giving plenty of draught, hut don’t shake a dying fire, or you lose it. This management is often necessary after a warm spell, when the stove has been kept dormant for days, though I hope you will not be so unfortunate as to have a fire to coax up on a cold winter morning. They should be arranged over night, so that all that is required is to open the draughts in order to have a cheery glow in a few minutes. Good Housekeeping. TO KEMOVE INK FROM CARPETS. When freshly spilled, ink can be removed from carpets by wetting in milk. Take cotton batting and soak up all of the ink that it will receive, being careful not to let it spread. Then take fresh cotton, wet in milk, and sop it up carefully. Repeat this operation, changing cotton and milk each time. After most of the ink has been taken up in this way, with fresh cotton and clean, rub the spot. Continue till all disappears ; then wash the spot in clean warm water and a little soap ; rinse in clear water and rub till nearly dry. If the ink is dried in, we know of no way that will not take the color from the carpet as well as the ink, unless the ink is on a white spot. In that case, salts of lemon, or soft soap, starch and lemon juice, will remove the ink as easily as if on cotton. TO TAKE RUST OUT OF STEEL. Ip possible, place the article in a bowl containing kerosene oil, or wrap the steel up in a soft cloth well saturated with kerosene ; let it remain twenty-four hours or longer, then scour the rusty spots with brick dust ; if badly rusted, use salt wet with hot vinegar; after scouring rinse every particle of brick dust or salt off with boiling hot water ; dry thoroughly with flannel cloths and place near the fire to make sure, then polish off with a clean flannel cloth and a little sweet oil. TO MAKE A PASTE OR MUCILAGE TO FASTEN LABELS. Soften good glue in water, then boil it with strong vinegar and thicken the liquid, during boiling, with fine wheat flour, so that a paste results ; or starch paste with which a little Venice turpentine has been incorporated while it was warm. A recipe for a transparent cement which possesses great tenacity and has not the slightest yellow tinge : Mix in a well-stoppered bottle ten drachms of chloroform with ten and one-half of non- vulcanized caoutchouc MISCELLANEOUS RECIPES. 533 (rubber) cut in small pieces. Solution is readily effected and when it is completed add two and one-half drachms of mastic. Let the whole macer- ate from eight to ten days without the application of any heat and shake the contents of the bottle at intervals. A perfectly white and very adhesive cement is the result. POSTAGE STAMP MUCILAGE. Take of gum dextrine two parts, acetic acid one part, water five parts. Dissolve in a water bath and add alcohol one part. Scientific American. Gum of great strength, which will also keep for a long time, is prepared by dissolving equal parts of gum arable and gum tragacanth in vinegar. A little vinegar added to ordinary gum water will make it keep much better. FAMILY GLUE.