"Because we want to have the fire clear and bright, not dull and smoky. It must be kept bright all the time too, and it must not be allowed to get hollow in places. Can you tell us, Mary, what you are to do if the fire needs to be mended before the joint is finished?"
"The live coal must be drawn to the front, ma'am, gently, so as not to let any cinders go into the dripping-tin," said Mary. "But we ought not to let the fire need mending; we must watch it and keep putting cinders and pieces of coal on to keep it up."
"You see now, Margaret, how important it is to have the right kind of fire," said Mrs. Herbert. "Have you heard that red meat which is to be roasted should hang for a while before being cooked?"
"At any rate I have heard people say 'This meat is not tender; it has not been hung long enough.'"
"Just so. It is very important that red meats which are to be roasted should be left to hang till tender. When we have a cool airy larder, we can hang meat for ourselves, when there is no such larder the butcher will hang it for us. The time which the meat must hang depends upon the weather. In dry cold weather it may hang a long time—two or three weeks—but in hot weather it must be quickly cooked, or it will not keep. In frosty weather, too, it should be put in a warm kitchen for some hours before being roasted, or it will not be tender."
"What do you mean by red meats, ma'am?"
"I mean, Mary, meats red in colour when cut, such as beef, mutton, and game. What are called white meats, such as veal, lamb, and pork, will not keep, and they therefore have to be cooked when fresh. Can either of you tell me what is the first thing to be done when you are going to roast meat?"
The little girls thought for a minute, then Mary said, "When we were going to boil the leg of mutton we weighed it, that we might know how long we were to let it simmer."
"Quite right, Mary. So you must do with this piece of beef. Weigh it and then allow for roasting a quarter of an hour for every pound, and a quarter of an hour over. If the joint is thick and solid we allow twenty minutes to the pound. In fact, we should always have a little consultation with ourselves before we begin to roast, and say to ourselves, 'Is this meat solid and thick with little bone, or is it thin and small?'"
"How long must we give the sirloin of beef?"