To keep the fire over night, close the front damper and leave the back one partly open ; put on fresh coal and after it has kindled open the cooling doors to admit cold air over the fire. The stove is blackened to make it look well, to prevent it from rusting and to keep in the heat. Moisten the blacking with warm or cold water, making a paste about as thick as cream. Rub this over the stove while it is cold and polish with a soft brush after the fire is kindled. 372 Soups and Their Preparation. In making soup uncooked meat should always .serve as the basic element. Cracked bones of cooked game or of rare beef and mutton may be added if desired, but the juices derived from raw meat can alone be depended upon for nourishment and flavor. The meat should be chopped fine, and then placed in cold water and allowed to soak for some time. If bones are used they should be thoroughly fractured. Heat should next be gradually applied and the water slowly brought to a boil. At no stage must it be allowed to boil fast. Salt has a tendency to harden the fibres and check the flow of the juices, and therefore should not be added till the meat is thoroughly done. While boiling, keep the pot covered. When done, strain through a cullender ; and after- wards, for clear soup, through a hair sieve, or coarse bobbinet lace. Let the tureen be kept covered until you are ready to serve the soup ; then ladle it out quickly and neatly, having the soup- plates warmed in advance. In most cases soup is better on the second than on the first day ; but it should not be warmed over too quickly, or left too long upon the fire after heating. If the object be to obtain stock for soup, boiling must be kept up for some time, so as to obtain from the meat all its gelatine, so far as possible. The hardened albumin- ous matter which floats in the liquid can be removed by straining, so as to leave the soup clear. There will remain in the vessel a dry fibrous mass without taste and of little nutritive value. Soup is often looked upon as a light kind of food — useful only as a preliminary to other foods ; but in many countries it is the staple article of diet. There is no better way of economizing food. All the waste fragments of the table may be made avail- able in this way. The French peasant has his '' pot-au-fcu'' always ready to receive anything from which nutriment can be extracted, and makes his soup, with the addition of bread, his main sustenance. Soups may be made alike from meats and vegetaliles, from shell-fish and game, and are capable of being very widely varied. THE MODEL COOK BOOK We give below recipes for preparing some of the more desirable kinds :

AI-modernized reading of the original text

To keep the fire over night, close the front damper and leave the back one partly open ; put on fresh coal and after it has kindled open the cooling doors to admit cold air over the fire. The stove is blackened to make it look well, to prevent it from rusting and to keep in the heat. Moisten the blacking with warm or cold water, making a paste about as thick as cream. Rub this over the stove while it is cold and polish with a soft brush after the fire is kindled. Soups and Their Preparation. In making soup uncooked meat should always .serve as the basic element. Cracked bones of cooked game or of rare beef and mutton may be added if desired, but the juices derived from raw meat can alone be depended upon for nourishment and flavor. The meat should be chopped fine, and then placed in cold water and allowed to soak for some time. If bones are used they should be thoroughly fractured. Heat should next be gradually applied and the water slowly brought to a boil. At no stage must it be allowed to boil fast. Salt has a tendency to harden the fibres and check the flow of the juices, and therefore should not be added till the meat is thoroughly done. While boiling, keep the pot covered. When done, strain through a cullender ; and afterwards, for clear soup, through a hair sieve, or coarse bobinet lace. Let the tureen be kept covered until you are ready to serve the soup ; then ladle it out quickly and neatly, having the soupplates warmed in advance. In most cases soup is better on the second than on the first day ; but it should not be warmed over too quickly, or left too long upon the fire after heating. If the object be to obtain stock for soup, boiling must be kept up for some time, so as to obtain from the meat all its gelatine, so far as possible. The hardened albuminous matter which floats in the liquid can be removed by straining, so as to leave the soup clear. There will remain in the vessel a dry fibrous mass without taste and of little nutritive value. Soup is often looked upon as a light kind of food — useful only as a preliminary to other foods ; but in many countries it is the staple article of diet. There is no better way of economizing food. All the waste fragments of the table may be made available in this way. The French peasant has his '' pot-au-fcu'' always ready to receive anything from which nutriment can be extracted, and makes his soup, with the addition of bread, his main sustenance. Soups may be made alike from meats and vegetaliles, from shell-fish and game, and are capable of being very widely varied. We give below recipes for preparing some of the more desirable kinds :

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