The rotary hand slicer is adapted for use on a very wide range of material. Don't slice your hand with it.
From an eighth to a quarter of an inch is a fair thickness for most of the common vegetables to be sliced. To secure fine quality, much depends upon having the vegetables absolutely fresh, young, tender, and perfectly clean; one decayed root may flavor several kettles of soup if the slices from it are scattered through a batch of material. High-grade "root" vegetables can only be made from peeled roots.
Blanching consists of plunging the vegetables into boiling water for a short time. Use a wire basket or cheesecloth bag for this. After blanching as many minutes as is needed, drain well and remove the surface moisture from vegetables by placing them between two towels or by exposing them to the sun and air for a short time.
A mosquito net is thrown over the product to protect the slices from flies and other insects. Fruits and vegetables, when dried in the sun, generally are spread on large trays of uniform size which can be stacked one on top of the other and protected from rain by covers made of oilcloth, canvas, or roofing paper.
A very cheap tray can be made of lath three fourths of an inch thick and 2 inches wide, which form the sides and ends of a box, and smoothed lath which is nailed on to form the bottom. As builders' laths are 4 feet long, these lath trays are most economical of material when made 4 feet in length.
A cheap and very satisfactory drier for use over the kitchen stove can be made by any handy man of small-mesh galvanized-wire netting and laths or strips of wood about 1/2 inch thick and 2 inches wide. By using two laths nailed together the framework can be stiffened and larger trays made if desirable. This form can be suspended from the ceiling over the kitchen range or over a clear burning oil, gasoline, or gas stove, and it will utilize the hot air which rises during the cooking hour. It can be raised out of the way or swung to one side by a pulley or by a crane made of lath. When the stove is required for cooking, the frame is lowered or swung back to utilize the heat which otherwise would be wasted. Still another home drier is the cookstove oven. Bits of food, left overs, especially sweet corn, can be dried on plates in a very slow oven or on the back of the cookstove and saved for winter use.
Where the electric "juice" is not monopolized, an electric fan in drying is economical, especially for those who already have a fan.
Many sliced fruits placed in long trays 3 by 1 foot and stacked in two tiers, end to end, before an electric fan can be dried within twenty-four hours. Some require much less time. For instance, sliced string beans and shredded sweet potatoes will dry before a fan running at a moderate speed within a few hours.
The dried fruit or vegetables must be protected from insects and rodents, also from the outside moisture, and will keep best in a cool, dry, well-ventilated place. In the more humid regions, moisture-tight containers should be used. If a small amount of dried product is put in each receptacle, just enough for one or two meals, it will not be necessary to open a large container.
Your American ingenuity and the American practice of reading will show you a lot of ways of saving waste: for example, frozen potatoes are not necessarily spoiled, we are told by Mr. de Ronsic, a writer in the Reveil Agricole. They may be dried and then cooked as usual. The Revue Scientifique (Paris), abstracting the article in question, says: