FoodNetArchive

Cassell's dictionary of cookery

1892

Page 1152

Presented as published in 1892. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
I a day; and in harvest-time many labourers drink in a day ten or twelve quarts of a liquor ■ that in a stranger's mouth would be mistaken for \dnegar. The men do not like sweet cider. Cider of good quality is manufactured in Ireland, in the counties of Waterford and Cork ; in Normandy, whence we have many of our best apples ; in Belgium ; and in Germany, the product of the last-named country being of I inferior quality. It is also made in abundance, and of excellent quality, in many parts of the United States. Good cider contains about six per cent, of I proof spirit. It is sometimes adulterated with lead, with a view to concealing tartness. This is II highly injurious practice, lead being a dangerous poison. Common cider is also exten- I sively employed for the manufacture of spurious wine. Notwithstanding the extensive scale on which j cider is generally manufactiu^ed in the cider counties, it is by no means necessary ; and it is quite possible to make it in small quantities of as excellent a quahty as is procurable in any other manner. The superabundant apples of a I moderately large garden may be economically converted to this use, and without a great deal of trouble. The machinery necessarv- for making cider I on this domestic scale is simple, and easily I obtainable at a small expense. The following ' answers the purpose as well as more costly ' apparatus : — I A tub is to be procured, made of strong staves ; the bottom is to be much thicker than I usual, and the peripheral edge of it must be at I least half an inch thick where it is let into the chi-nib. The iron hoops must be strong, especially the two lower ones on the chimb. This tub is to answer the purjioses of a crushing trough ; it must sustain the strokes of a heavy pounder, and hence the necessity of its being made as strong as possible. The diameter ef the bottom of the tub should be only eighteen inches ; its height about the same. The next article is the pounder. This is to be made of any hard wood. Its shape may be easily conceived by imagining a cone, about the size of an ordinary loaf of sugar, with a handle, proceeding from its apex, of about four feet in length. The base of the cone should be per- fectly flat. The press which will be foimd most con- venient, is the common square clothes' press. It consists of a rectangular horizontal board, three feet in length, a foot and a half in breadth, and at least foui- inches in thickness. At each end of this, and mid-way in the breadth, is erected a perpendicular square pillar, the trans- verse section of which is about four inches square ; the height of each pillar is three feet. PER ( 539 PER