" Oh, no, not at all. You were expected to use salt with it, just as you do on your meat and vegetables when AUNT JANE'S COOKING GLASS. 81 they are not salt enough. Though I think, on the whole, I prefer our fashion. Now, Rose, you may touch your paste with your hands for the first time. Sift a dust of flour over the dough that you have spread with butter, then roll it into the shape of a fat bolster. Now roll it- out again thin with the rolling-pin, — not too thin, but rather more than half an inch thick, — then spread on the next portion of butter, sift flour over it, and roll it again, and so on until the butter is all in. Always roll from yourself; dont bring back the pin backwards over the same ground." "Why not, Aunty?" "Your paste will not flake as finely; and you must re- member that I am showing you the most elegant way of making it. When you don't care to have it look so hand- some, or are making it for plain family pies, you can shorten the operation a good deal. And after making it a very few times, you will not need to weigh or measure at all, except for puff-paste, and many cooks don't do even that. You learn to feel just how much lard and butter are needed in proportion to the flour you have, and much of the trouble is aaved." " What kind of pies are we going to make, Aunt Jane? ' 82 SIX LITTLE OOOK8. " I'll tell you in a minute. Now, Kose, as your last quarter of butter is in, you need not roll it out again just now. Set it in the ice-box till Edith has finished hers. She is to do exactly as you did, except that she need divide her quarter of a pound of butter into only two parts. Don't forget the little sprinkling of flour over it each time you have spread out the butter. Now, as to pies; I thought that, perhaps, to-day I would only let you make puddings." " Oh, Aunt Jane! then what is all this pie crust for? " — and three pairs of wide-opened eyes were fixed on her at once. " Perhaps you don't know that a dish only lined with paste and not covered over the top, is a pudding in paste and not a pie at all, always excepting a New England pumpkin pie, of course, or a custard pie; one couldn't call those puddings. But lemon, and cream, and cocoa- nut, and all such as that, are really puddings." " How about cranberry, Aunt Jane? That's not cov- ered." "That is properly a tart; so is a pie made of apples, peaches, or, in fact, any kind of fruit. But as the com- mon custom seems to be against giving any of AUNT JANE'S COOKING GLASS. 83 things their strictly correct names, I suppose we must go on calling them pies, as the rest of the world do." " I thought ' tart ' meant * rather sour,* said Rose." " So it does, in one of its English meanings ; but the name as applied to a pie comes from the French. Your paste looks very nice, Edith; now set it in the ice-box while we consider what will be the nicest material to fill our pie-puddings with." " Then is pumpkin really the only pie, Aunt Jane? ': "Oh, no! all meat pies are properly so named. I don't know when they left off calling them ' pasties' in old England. ' Bring pasties of the doe,' you remember." " Yes," said Grace, " and when I used to hear "Walter spouting Marmion, I thought it was spelt dough"

AI-modernized reading of the original text

" Oh, no, not at all. You were expected to use salt with it, just as you do on your meat and vegetables when they are not salt enough. Though I think, on the whole, I prefer our fashion. Now, Rose, you may touch your paste with your hands for the first time. Sift a dust of flour over the dough that you have spread with butter, then roll it into the shape of a fat bolster. Now roll itout again thin with the rolling-pin, — not too thin, but rather more than half an inch thick, — then spread on the next portion of butter, sift flour over it, and roll it again, and so on until the butter is all in. Always roll from yourself; dont bring back the pin backwards over the same ground." "Why not, Aunty?" "Your paste will not flake as finely; and you must remember that I am showing you the most elegant way of making it. When you don't care to have it look so handsome, or are making it for plain family pies, you can shorten the operation a good deal. And after making it a very few times, you will not need to weigh or measure at all, except for puff-paste, and many cooks don't do even that. You learn to feel just how much lard and butter are needed in proportion to the flour you have, and much of the trouble is aaved." " What kind of pies are we going to make, Aunt Jane? ' " I'll tell you in a minute. Now, Kose, as your last quarter of butter is in, you need not roll it out again just now. Set it in the ice-box till Edith has finished hers. She is to do exactly as you did, except that she need divide her quarter of a pound of butter into only two parts. Don't forget the little sprinkling of flour over it each time you have spread out the butter. Now, as to pies; I thought that, perhaps, to-day I would only let you make puddings." " Oh, Aunt Jane! then what is all this pie crust for? " — and three pairs of wide-opened eyes were fixed on her at once. " Perhaps you don't know that a dish only lined with paste and not covered over the top, is a pudding in paste and not a pie at all, always excepting a New England pumpkin pie, of course, or a custard pie; one couldn't call those puddings. But lemon, and cream, and cocoanut, and all such as that, are really puddings." " How about cranberry, Aunt Jane? That's not covered." "That is properly a tart; so is a pie made of apples, peaches, or, in fact, any kind of fruit. But as the common custom seems to be against giving any of things their strictly correct names, I suppose we must go on calling them pies, as the rest of the world do." " I thought ' tart ' meant * rather sour,* said Rose." " So it does, in one of its English meanings ; but the name as applied to a pie comes from the French. Your paste looks very nice, Edith; now set it in the ice-box while we consider what will be the nicest material to fill our pie-puddings with." " Then is pumpkin really the only pie, Aunt Jane? ': "Oh, no! all meat pies are properly so named. I don't know when they left off calling them ' pasties' in old England. ' Bring pasties of the doe,' you remember." " Yes," said Grace, " and when I used to hear "Walter spouting Marmion, I thought it was spelt dough"

Six little cooks