The home cook book

STRAWBERRY PUNCH Make tea by pouring a quart of fresh boiling water on three teaspoons of tea. In a punch bowl lay a four-inch square of ice, add the juice of four lemons and one orange, two cups of sugar, and a box of small strawberries — the field strawberries are nicest, but if they are not to be had, use the large cultivated berries and cut them in quarters or eighths. Now pour in your tea, and add two pint bottles of apollinaris, or the same amount of clear spring water. Stir about and ladle into cups when served. SUMMER ZEPHYR Cut a pound and a half of rhubarb into thin slices, cover with water, and add one bay leaf and one stick of paper-bark cinnamon. Simmer until the rhubarb is tender, then strain. Add to the juice one cup of sugar and simmer ten minutes. Then add one pint of orange-juice, the juice of three lemons, half a cup of preserved ginger-juice. Put shaved ice in a pitcher and add the cooled concoction. In each glass place a halved strawberry or cherries, or any seasonable fruit. [See illustration, Plate XXX.] WASSAIL BOWL Mix half a pound of brown sugar, one pint of ale, half a nutmeg grated, half a teaspoon of ginger, a pinch of cinnamon. Heat, but do not boil. Then add half a pint of Malaga wine, one quart more of ale, and the grated rind of one lemon. Turn into a punchbowl and add as many cored and baked apples as there are guests. Serve while hot. [See illustration, Plate XXXI.] WHIPS Sweeten to your taste a pint of thin cream and beat in a wineglass of wine and a tablespoon of the extract of lemon. Set in a cool place. Beat to a stiff froth the whites of three eggs. Stir them rapidly into the cream. Pour in wineglasses and serve. [See illustration, Plate XXXI.] GRUELS, BROTHS, CORDIALS 393 XXXVI GRUELS, BROTHS, CORDIALS To Make Gruels— Barley Water— Old-Fashioaed Beef Tea— Quick Beef Tea— Caudle- Chicken Broth— Mutton Barley Broth— Blackberry Cordial— Flaxseed Tea or Lemonade—Hoarhound Cough Syrup— Jelly Water— Slippery Elm Bark Tea TO MAKE GRUELS GROUND rice flour, cornmeal, oatmeal, arrowroot, and other flours are used for gruels — nourishing, healing food for stomachs temporarih' disabled and unable to digest anything more substantial. Mix two tablespoons of the meal or flour with cold water till you have a smooth paste. Then stir the paste gradually into a pint of water boiling in a doubleboiler. Stir in slowly so there will be no lumps, and add quarter of a teaspoon of salt. Cover and let cook thoroughly — if cornmeal or oatmeal three hours at least ; if arrowroot and other lighter flours half to three-quarters of an hour. Stir occasionally while cooking. BARLEY WATER To a quart of cold water in a porcelain saucepan allow two ounces of mashed pearl barley, two ounces of seeded raisins, and the grated rind and juice of a lemon. Cover with an earthen plate and boil till the water is reduced one-half. Strain and sweeten as the taste demands. Serve either warm or cold. OLD-FASHIONED BEEF TEA Take a piece of lean meat irom the round and free it from fat, etc. Cut in small pieces, or have the butcher run it through a meat-chopper. Put the meat in an earthen or strong glass jar. cover with a quart of cold water, cork or seal tight, and set in a pot of cold water. Set over a slow