The complete Indian housekeeper & cook

In the mere waste of provisions which a good one avoids there lies a saving. A real, large refrigerator is better than a doctor, but it requires scrupulous cleanliness, and the personal attention of the mistress. Meat put into it should be wiped over with a solution of boracic acid, and a pan of charcoal kept in the refrigerator. The usual plan of putting first ice, wrapped in blankets, into The Complete Indian a tin-lined box, and then stuffing the box with indiscriminate provisions wrapped in dirty dusters, is not sanitary. Milk should never be put in with meat. It is far better to boil it, put it into a tightly-corked bottle, and set it on the ice, which should be in a different compartment. But scalded milk will keep a day in the hottest weather if properly treated. The next important point is the opening and closing of the house. With a thermantidote it need never be opened, as a fresh supply of air is constantly being pumped into it. With punkahs, common-sense and care is needed, and an almost daily order ; otherwise the bearer will disregard whirlwinds, dust-storms, in fact, all natural phenomena and seasons, in favour of an implicit obedience to mere time, which is as unusual as it is irritating. If the doors are open all night they should invariably be closed half-an-hour before sunrise and for the half-hour after sun-setting. This is mosquito time, to say nothing of malaria time. Attention to this detail will keep your house comparatively free of both. Draperies should be removed for the hot weather, and everything likely to harbor insects put aside; but it is a mistake to strip your I’ooms and make yourself uncomfortable. It is an enormous mistake to darken your rooms too much. You may succeed in keeping them a degree cooler, but, as has been said elsewhere, the sun is your friend, and you cannot shut him out altogether from your life with impunity. The enforced idleness of a dark room is worse for your body and soul in the future than many degrees of present heat. In fact, the writer looks back gratefully to certain artistic leanings which, in her early Indian days, made the lack of light impossible. To it she owes much of her freedom from the usual effects of India on womankind, which are generally set down to the climate. In regard to getting up early. People say they cannot ; that it does not suit them to go out before breakfast. Now, early and late are purely relative terms, and breakfast is a movable feast. If yon go to bed two hours earlier, five o’clock becomes as late as seven o’clock was when you retired to rest two hours later ; while it is always possible to invert the sentence and have breakfast before you go out . The object being to gain, out of doors, an hour or two during which you can walk, and ride, and jilay tennis with comfort, a time when the sun can shine on you undimmed by the gases Housekeeper and Cook 203