Virginia Cookery-book

Jerusalem artichoke is an entirely different vegetable. The part eaten is its tuber-like root. Boil them as potatoes are boiled, being careful to cook them rapidly, and dish without delay, as they are spoiled by standing for any length of time. Pour over them a little butter and cream when sent to table. Asparagus. In Virginia asparagus is not allowed to show itself more than an inch above ground at farthest. The gardener slips his knife underground and cuts the stalk off four or five inches beneath the surface. Thus cut, if the beds are rich and well-tended, the white part is just as tender as the blossom end. Well grown it should be nearly or quite an inch in diameter. Let the cook scrape well, to make sure of leaving no part stringy or tough, and lay the stalks in cold water until about half an hour before dinner ; then tie up the asparagus into two bundles for one dishful, put it into boiling water into which you have thrown a dessertspoonful of salt, and cook until tender. Have ready-toasted several slices of stale bread, dip them into the water in which the asparagus was boiled for one second only, butter well, and lay in the bottom of your vegetable-dish. Cut the string from your bundles of asparagus and remove them just as you dish it, and serve, under cover, hot Put a good table-spoonful of nice fresh butter on the asparagus, in addition to that put upon the toast. French, or Snap Beans. Cut off the stalk end first, then turn to the point and strip off the strings. If not quite freshly gathered, have a bowl of salt-water (only a little salt) standing before you, and as you string the beans throw them into it. When all are prepared put them on the fire in boiling water, with some salt in it. In fifteen or twenty minutes they will be tender ; then take them out and throw them into a colander to drain quickly. Dish them up with a little butter, salt, and pepper. Butter is thought to keep them looking green. Lima Beans. Shell them, and put them into hot water to boil, after letting them lie a few minutes in cold water ; add a little salt to the water, which must only be enough to cover them well. They should be done in half an hour. Drain and add a teaspoonful of butter to a pint of the beans. If Lima beans are spread out to dry in their shells, gathered green as for summer use, they are most useful in winter both for soup and as a vegetable. They are to be soaked, then, several hours before they are put on to boil, which will require from four to five hours, instead of the few minutes allotted to them in summer. No vegetable is more generally liked. Beets. Very early in summer this vegetable is most popular, seldom afterward. It is important to select the earliest, most improved varieties for cookery. The blood-red turnip - shaped and Egyptian early are believed to be the best. Observe that neither the top is cut too close nor that the fibres of the root are torn off, unless you would lose much of the sweetness and brightness of color. For the same reason the cook should not pierce it in any way to ascertain if it is done. Allow from one to two hours for the boiling, according to the size of your beets. When done peel them, and slice up in thin, round pieces, adding a little salt and small bit of butter, also vinegar for most tastes. If beets are left over from one dinner, by covering with vinegar and adding a little sugar, they make a nice dish the second day also. Careots