Sea kale is prepared, boiled, and served up in the same manner as asparagus.
The young stalks and leaves of the poke-berry plant when quite small and first beginning to sprout up from the ground in the spring, are by most persons considered very nice, and are frequently brought to market. If the least too old they acquire a strong taste, and should not be eaten, as they then become unwholesome. They are in a proper state when the part of the stalk nearest to the ground is not thicker than small asparagus. Scrape the stalks, (letting the leaves remain on them,) and throw them into cold water. Then tie up the poke in bundles, put it into a pot that has plenty of boiling water, and let it boil fast an hour at least. Serve it up with or without toast, and send melted butter with, it in a boat.
Peel your tomatas, cut them in half and squeeze out the seeds. Then put them into a stew-pan without any water, and add to them cayenne and salt to your taste, (and if you choose,) a little minced onion, and some powdered mace, Stew them slowly till they are first dissolved and then dry.
Peel some large fine tomatas, cut them up, and take out the seeds. Then put them into a deep dish in alternate layers with grated bread-crumbs, and a very little butter in small bits. There must be a large proportion of bread-crumbs. Season the whole with a little salt, and cayenne pepper. Set it in an oven, and bake it. In cooking tomatas, take care not to have them too liquid.
Good mushrooms are only found in clear open fields where the air is pure and unconfined. Those that grow in low damp ground, or in shady places, are always poisonous. Mushrooms of the proper sort generally appear in August and September, after a heavy dew or a misty night. They may be known by their being of a pale pink or salmon colour on the gills or under side, while the top is of a dull pearl-coloured white; and by their growing only in open places. When they are a day old, or a few hours after they are gathered, the reddish colour changes to brown.
The poisonous or false mushrooms are of various colours, sometimes of a bright yellow or scarlet all over; sometimes entirely of a chalky white stalk, top, and gills.