OLD-TIME

rooms,” and one —high, deep and wide—in the
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kitchen. A heavy crane swung in this kitchen fire-
place, on which she could hang four or five cooking-

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pots and kettles at atime. At the left was the brick
oven, four feet deep and two feet high, arched over
with brick. The brick or stone floor of this oven
was about four feet higher than the kitchen floor, and
under it was a long pit for ashes.

A large portion of the great Whitney farm still
bristled. with stumps and roots; but some corn was
raised even the first year. Potatoes, which after-
ward formed such an important crop, were little used,
a barrel of them being considered an ample supply
for winter. They were raised in the garden with
other vegetables and in similar quantities. Baked or
boiled potatoes for every-day fare, as we regularly
use them, were unknown; they were mostly used
in “ boiled victuals,” a farm-house dinner stil] much
esteemed by families who keep to the old ways.

Madame Whitney’s preparations for a boiled din-
ner began before breakfast, when she put a great
piece of salt beef in the pot over the fire. This pot
was a fat thing, small at the top, to keep the smoke
away from the cover, and it held two or three pail-
fuls. A piece of pork and a quantity of “garden

COOKERY. 103
gauce’’—beets, cabbage, turnips, carrots and pota-
toes—followed the beef at the appropriate time, and,
best of all, a pudding. No boiled dinner was com-
plete without its pudding, which was put into the
pot at exactly nine o’clock, dinner being always
served at noon. The pudding was a simple batter
of new milk and Indian meal, made thin and boiled
in a linen bag. ‘To insure lightness the water in the
pot must be boiling briskly when the pudding was
put in, and never stop for an instant. ‘This item of
care-taking attended to, when the bag was turned
off, the pudding was always found to be “light asa
cork,” and, with cream and maple-sugar, was very
toothsome; and all the more highly prized that they
did not have dessert with every dinner. After the
vegetables and meats and pudding had been taken
up, crusts of brown bread which had been saved for
this purpose, were put into the pot and boiled a few
minutes, then skimmed out—a brewis with nameless
garden flavors —to accompany the dinner.

A good deal of time was required for the prepara»
tion of a boiled dinner, but the shrewd lady saw at
least four meals in the pot when she swung forth
the crane. She served it warm for the first dinner,
cold for supper, with brown bread and a salad of
chopped mustard leaves if it was summer time. In
the morning she made a hash of the remaining meats
and vegetables; and for the next day’s dinner there
was a soup compounded of the fragments, the pot-
broth, and a pint of beans —I must admit that this
was not so popular a dinner as the first.

Many beans were raised, the stumps being very
convenient to dry them on. They were baked and
stewed, but oftenest of all were made into bean
porridge. This was a rich, thick soup, cooked slowly
fora long time. It was made with seasoning of beef
bones, if obtainable, but oftener a few slices of salt
pork were fried in the pot, two or three quarts
of water poured upon
them, and added to this

  

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