Home dissertations

ice in close cans, and making it unfit to use. Dairies which keep the milk in huge close tin drawers or cans instead of open pans, make a great mistake, for neither butter nor milk kept in this way is fit for food, nor will it keep nearly as long as it should. Never let milk stand near a sink or any refuse. I have heard of children who took diphtheria from milk which had absorbed sewer air from the vent of a stationary wash-basin where the nurse kept the pitcher cool at night. If you must keep milk in a sick-room, nursery, or a close closet, let it cool and air for three hours in the best place you can find for it, then put it in a tight can, with a flannel case, and set it in a shallow pan of water in a draft, which will keep it cool and preserve it sweet as long as possible. The care of meat is a nice thing, too, and for the health of the family, needs more attention than it oftens gets. After it has been well-chosen, bright colored, fine grained, with a firm white fat, freshly cut, with no dried or darkened edges or corners to spoil, and sent home, it must not lie in paper one moment more than is necessary, for paper, which is nothing but pulp of rotten rags, glue and lime, spoils food very soon. Take the meat out, and the first thing, scrape it clean all over. You hear persons, tell you to wash meat before cooking, and others say it should be wiped only, for water washes away the flavor, but scraping removes all that is not good, and the meat keeps better for being put away clean. Fish should be cleaned and wiped with a coarse towel and lie wrapped in a clean dry cloth with salt over it. Meat may be kept without salt by searing the outsides and letting each cook half a minute. This closes the pores so that the juice does not escape, and the air cannot readily affect the flesh; it will make the meat tender. Keep it in pure air, away from sour milk, yeast, salt fish, or any strong flavors, for meat and flour absorb bad air as well as butter, and spoil the quicker for it. Vegetables need a cool, dark place, where they will not freeze. They should have clean bins or boxes, and be cleaned themselves when stored. A furnace-warmed cellar is no place for them. A cold, dark cellar or garret is the best place for fruit, which should be often sorted and picked over. Apples take bad flavors from being with other stores. Pick out all inferior and bruised ones first, and make them into apple butter, which is the best way of keeping them, and is always ready for pies, and as a compote. 50 HOME DISSERTATIONS. Potatoes should be picked over in February, and scalded in a kettle of boiling water for two or three minutes, to prevent sprouting. You will find your spring potatoes much better for it. Onions should be kept in shallow boxes, and need as much looking after as choice fruit, for they are very sensitive to bad air, and, when not in the best condition, are about as healthy to eat as diseased meat. When perfectly sound there is no healthier food than onions. Fruits and vegetables should be put up in glass jars exclusively. Sour vege- tables, or fruit shut up in tin cans six months, cannot be the most wholesome.