“But I don’t know who picked them!” cries Mrs. Fussy.
No, my dear madam! nor do you know who makes the baker’s bread, or confectioner’s cakes, creams, jellies, salads, etc. Nor, for that matter, how the flour is manufactured out of which you conjure your dainty biscuit and pies. I was so foolish as to go into a flour-mill once, and having seen a burly negro, naked to the waist, with his trousers rolled up to his knees, stand in a bank of “fine family flour,” a foot deep in the lowest part, on a July day, shovelling it into barrels for the market, I rushed into the outer air a sicker and a wiser woman.
I know God made strawberries. “Doubtless,” says Bishop Butler, “He could have made a better berry, but He never did!” The picker’s light touch cannot mar flavor or beauty, nor, were her fingers filthy as a chimney-sweep’s, could the delicate fruit suffer from them as from your barbarous baptism. You would like to know who picked them. I should inquire instead, “Who washed them, and in what?” I recollect seeing a housekeeper, who was afflicted with your inquiring turn of mind, wash strawberries in a wash-hand basin!
Currants and Raspberries.
Pick the currants from the stems, and mix with an equal quantity of raspberries. Put into a glass bowl, and eat with powdered sugar.
Frosted Currants.
Pick fine even bunches, and dip them, one at a time, into a mixture of frothed white of egg, and a very little cold water. Drain them until nearly dry, and roll in pulverized sugar. Repeat the dip in the sugar once or twice, and lay them upon white paper to dry. They make a beautiful garnish for jellies or charlottes, and look well heaped in a dish by themselves or with other fruit.
Plums and grapes are very nice frosted in the same way.