In summer, meat, poultry, fish, fruit, &c., should always be kept in ice, from the time they are brought from market till it is time to cook them. Families, who have not an ice-house, should have two refrigerators; one for meat and poultry, the other for milk, butter, and fruit. If the three last articles are kept in the same refrigerator with meat and poultry, the milk, butter and fruit will imbibe a bad taste.
A barrel of salt fish should never be kept in the same cellar with other articles of food. The fish-smell will injure them greatly, and render them unwholesome; milk and butter particularly.
It is best to buy salt fish a little at a time, as you want it. A fish-barrel in the cellar will sometimes vitiate the atmosphere of the whole lower story of the house, and, indeed, may be smelt immediately on entering the door. In this case, let the barrel and its contents be conveyed to the river and thrown in; otherwise, its odour may produce sickness in the family.
Avoid eating anything that is in the very least approaching to decomposition. Even sour bread and strong butter are unwholesome as well as unpalatable. If the bread is sour, or the butter rancid, it is because (as the French, in such cases, unceremoniously say) "putrefaction has commenced." Fortunately, the vile practice (once considered fashionable) of eating venison and other game when absolutely tainted, is now obsolete at all good tables. Persons who have had opportunities of feasting on fresh-killed venison, just from the woods, and at a season when the deer have plenty of wild berries to feed on and are fat and juicy, can never relish the hard, lean, black haunches that are brought to the cities in winter.
BROILED SHAD.—
Cut off the head and tail, and clean the fish. Wipe it very dry with a cloth, and sprinkle the inside with a little salt and pepper. You may either broil it split open, and laid flat; or you may cut it into three or four pieces without splitting. In the latter case, it will require a longer time to broil. Keep it in ice till you are ready to cook it. Having well greased the bars with lard, or beef suet, or fresh butter, set your gridiron over a bed of clear, bright, hot coals; place the shad upon it (the inside downwards) and broil it thoroughly. When one side is done, turn it on the other with a knife and fork. Have ready a hot dish, with a large piece of softened fresh butter upon it, sprinkled with cayenne. When the shad is broiled, lay it on this dish, and turn it in the butter with a knife and fork. Send it hot to table, under a dish-cover.
APPLE PORK.—
Take a fillet of fine fresh pork, and rub it slightly all over with a very little salt and pepper. Score the outside skin in diamonds. Take out the bone, and fill up the place with fine juicy apples, pared, cored, and cut small, and made very sweet with plenty of brown sugar; adding some bits of the yellow rind of a lemon or two, pared off very thin. Then have ready a dozen and a half or more of large apples, pared, cored, and quartered, sweetened well with sugar, and also flavoured with yellow rind of lemon. The juice of the lemons will be an improvement. Put the pork into a large pot, or into an iron bake-oven; fill up with the cut apples the space all round, adding just sufficient water to keep it from burning. Stew or bake it during three hours. When done, serve all up in one large dish.
STEWED SALT PORK.—
Take a good piece of salt pork, (not too fat,) and, early in the evening, lay it in water, to soak all night, changing the water about bed-time. In the morning, drain and wash the pork, and cut it in very thin slices, seasoning it with pepper. Put a layer of this pork in the bottom of a large dinner-pot, and then a layer of slices of bread. Next put in a layer of potatoes, pared and cut up; then another layer of pork slices, covered by another layer of sliced bread; and then again potatoes. Proceed till the pot is two-thirds full, finishing with bread. Lastly, pour on just sufficient water to stew it well and keep it from burning. Set it over the fire, and let it cook slowly for three hours. If it becomes too dry, add a little boiling water.