Vegetables.—Almost without exception, vegetables are prepared for cooking by being washed and laid in cold water to be freshened. Some kinds require no other preparation; others must be also scraped or peeled or shelled or husked.
Those vegetables which require no preparation for cooking except washing and freshening are: asparagus, beets, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach and sweet potatoes.
Cress, celery, endive, lettuce and radishes require this same preparation, but are not usually cooked.
One must be careful not to break the skins of beets and not to cut their tops too close, that the juices may not flow out and leave the beet colourless and tasteless.
Salt should be put in the water in which cabbage and cauliflower are freshened and the cabbage heads should be divided into quarters that the small insects which these vegetables are apt to contain may be driven out.
The washing of spinach requires especial care. It is well to use two pans that the spinach may be lifted back and forth from one to the other and the sand left in the bottom of the pans. A little salt should be put into one of the waters to expel insects.
Vegetables which require also to be scraped are, carrots, oyster plant, parsnips and new potatoes.
Vegetables which require to be peeled as well as to be washed and freshened are: cucumbers, egg plant, mushrooms, onions, white potatoes, squash, turnips and tomatoes.
Egg plant is sliced, but the slices are not always peeled. It is freshened in salted water.
Cucumbers and tomatoes are laid in water before they are peeled instead of afterward. Thick pieces should be cut from the ends and sides of cucumbers as the skin contains unwholesome juices.