CHAPTER XVII.
Vegetables.
The quality of vegetables depends much both on the soil in which they are grown, and on the degree of care bestowed upon their culture; but if produced in ever so great perfection, their excellence will be entirely destroyed if they be badly cooked.
With the exception of artichokes, which are said to be improved by two or three days’ keeping, all the summer varieties should be dressed before their first freshness has in any degree passed off (for their flavour is never so fine as within a few hours of their being cut or gathered); but when this cannot be done, precaution should be taken to prevent their withering. The stalk-ends of asparagus, cucumbers, and vegetable-marrow, should be placed in from one to two inches of cold water; and all other kinds should be spread on a cool brick floor. When this has been neglected, they must be thrown into cold water for some time before they are boiled to recover them, though they will prove even then but very inferior eating.
Vegetables when not sufficiently cooked are known to be so exceedingly unwholesome and indigestible, that the custom of serving them crisp, which means, in reality, only half-boiled, should be altogether disregarded when health is considered of more importance than fashion; but they should not be allowed to remain in the water after they are quite done, or both their nutritive properties and their flavour will be lost, and their good appearance destroyed. Care should be taken to drain them thoroughly in a warm strainer, and to serve them very hot, with well-made sauces, if with any.
Only dried peas or beans, Jerusalem artichokes, and potatoes, are put at first into cold water. All others require plenty of fast-boiling water, which should be ready salted and skimmed before they are thrown into it.