Mawbery.—Get fourpennyworth mawbery bark from a chemist, boil it with a little water, and let it stand till cool. Add sufficient water to fill 12 bottles, and sweeten to taste, strain, and brew it for some time. Bottle and let it stand 24 hours, when it is fit for use, and it is a pleasant drink, slightly bitter. The bottles must never be corked and the froth which works up must be taken off. Never let it stand more than 2 days after it is fit for use.
Pepper-pot.—Pepper-pot cannot be prepared without cassaripe, and it may be interesting here to describe the mode of manufacture of that very excellent sauce, which is also used to great advantage in soups and sauces. It is made from the cassava root, bitter cassava, which is thus prepared: Peel and grate the roots on a large grater, which must be placed in a tub to receive it, put the pulp that has been grated into a mataube (a mataube is a long tube-like squeezer made of reed, by the Buck Indians, the lower end has a handle, the upper part is hung up on a tree, or some such convenient place). Hang up the mataube when quite full of cassava pulp, and pull the lower handle until all the juice is expressed. This juice must be allowed to settle in a tub; it is then to be strained; the settlement of the cassava juice is often converted into a very inferior kind of starch. Now place the strained juice into a large pot, and reduce it by repeated boiling greatly, and keep constantly skimming while boiling it; it will be found that the colour will change from white milky-looking juice to yellow, and lastly to black. During the boiling a small quantity of sugar and a few bird peppers (from which cayenne pepper is ground) should be added; then let the juice cool, bottle and cork it, and it is ready for pepper-pot, and for colouring soups and gravies. Good cassaripe is very thick and black. The cassava pulp, which is left dry, when all the juice is expressed, makes very delicious bread; it is placed in hoops in an oven, without the addition of any liquid, merely pressed together in a thin round wafer form, baked in an oven, and then taken out while still quite pale in colour, and exposed for some time to the burning West Indian sun. This bread is very delicious when toasted and buttered, served hot.
Place a sufficient quantity of meat—whether pork, beef, or mutton—to fill the earthen pot you possess (the Demerarians usually use a black earthen open pot, made by the Buck Indians) in a pot of boiling water; let it boil a few minutes. Then take out the meat, and cut it up in pieces, as you would for a stew; place these in the buckpot, and fill to the top with boiling water; put in with the meat sufficient cassaripe to make the sauce a rich colour, 6 fresh peppers, or a spoonful of cayenne, tied up in a bit of muslin; boil this for an hour; remove it then from the fire, and boil it up every day once whether it is used or not. It should be served hot in the buckpot in which it is cooked, which should be placed on a clean plate and so brought to table. On no account serve the pepper-pot in a dish other than it has been cooked in, and that dish should always be earthen. Cold meat without gravy or onions can be added, in fact any meat that is not seasoned or stuffed.
Pepper Punch.—Pound one pennyworth of dry ginger in a mortar, with 12 bird peppers, and boil this for a short time in a little water, place this in a stone jar, adding ¼ pint lime juice, strained, ¼ pint white rum, ¼ pint gin, ½ pint brandy, and sugar to taste, with 10 qt. cold water; stir the whole well together, cut a white lemon in two and throw in, tie the jar down, and place in the sun for 2 days, then bottle off, cork very tightly, and use when ripe; if this is to be kept any time, the corks should be tied with twine, or wired, or they will fly like champagne corks. This quantity is sufficient to fill 12 quart bottles.
Pinaree.—An Indian drink. Grate the bitter cassava and express the juice; sift the pulp and take all the coarse remains from the sifter, say 2 pints, moisten with fresh boiled cassaripe, grate 2 sweet potatoes, put all in a jar, cover with a leaf, and leave for 3 days, when a small quantity can be drunk with water. If allowed to stand many days, this becomes a most intoxicating drink, and is much used by the Buck Indians.
Pine Drink.—The rind of 1 pineapple to a quart bottle. Pare off the rind rather thickly, place it in a stone jar, with a few cloves, and 1 qt. boiling water; let it stand 24 hours, strain and sweeten to taste, bottle and cork tightly. It is ready for use in 2-3 days.
Salmagundy.—Wash a Dutch herring, remove the flesh from the bones, and lay it in a dish; put a few slices of onion on it. Boil ½ pint vinegar, with a little allspice, ginger, and pepper; when cold, pour it over the herring.
Slip and Dip.—This is a Barbadian dish. Procure some eddoes, boil them till they will slip out of the skin readily by slightly pressing. Stew some tchad (a kind of salted herring) with butter, seasoning, &c., and eat the boiled eddoes with the stew. The two together are called “Slip and Dip,” just as with us fried salt beef and fried greens and potatoes rejoice in the name of “Bubble and Squeak.” Eddoes boiled, with butter sauce and lime juice poured over them, or with anchovy sauce, are used as vegetables.
Sorrel Drink.—This fruit grows almost wild at two seasons of the year in Demerara, and is of a very rich claret colour, and makes a delicious drink or preserve. The tops are useless, also the seeds. Sometimes the above is boiled into a thick syrup, and mixed with rum, when it is called sorrel bounce.
Sous.—Take the head of a young pig, tie it up in a very clean and thin cloth, and boil it in strong salt and water till sufficiently cooked. Then take it up and place it in an open vessel, cover it with slightly salted water. Let it remain in this for 2 hours, then take the head and remove the cloth, cut it up into delicate pieces, together with the tongue, ears, and trotters. Place all these on a large dish, with several rings of large onions, and some slices of fresh peppers; squeeze some limes till you have enough juice to fill ⅓ teacup, stir a little salt into this, fill up the cup with water, strain it, and pour over the pieces of pork; garnish with parsley, and serve cold either for breakfast or luncheon. Calf’s head treated in the same manner is equally good.