The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families. Eaton Mary
promote the latter, the child should be suffered to gnaw such substances as tend to mollify the gums, and by their pressure to facilitate the appearance of the teeth. A piece of liquorice or marshmallow root will be serviceable, or the gums may be softened and relaxed by rubbing them with honey or sweet oil.
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Dairy. In a publication intended for general usefulness, the management of the dairy, the source of so many comforts, demands some attention, in addition to the information conveyed under various other articles, connected with this interesting part of female economy. A dairy house then ought to be so situated that the windows or lattices may front the north, and it should at all times be kept perfectly cool and clean. Lattices are preferable to glazed lights, as they admit a free circulation of air; and if too much wind draws in, oiled paper may be pasted over the lattice, or a frame constructed so as to slide backwards and forwards at pleasure. Dairies cannot be kept too cool in the summer: they ought therefore to be erected, if possible, near a spring of running water. If a pump can be fixed in the place, or a stream of water conveyed through it, it will tend to preserve a continual freshness and purity of the air. The floor should be neatly paved with red brick, or smooth stone, and laid with a proper descent, so that no water may stagnate: it should be well washed every day, and all the utensils kept with the strictest regard to cleanliness. Neither the cheese, rennet, or cheesepress, must be suffered to contract any taint; nor should the churns be scalded in the dairy, as the steam arising from the hot water tends greatly to injure the milk. The utensils of the dairy should all be made of wood: lead, copper, and brass are poisonous, and cast iron gives a disagreeable taste to the productions of the dairy. Milk leads in particular should be utterly abolished, and well-glazed earthen pans used in their stead. Sour milk has a corroding tendency, and the well known effects of the poison of lead are, bodily debility, palsy, and death. The best of all milk vessels are flat wooden trays about three inches deep, and wide enough to contain a full gallon of milk. These may be kept perfectly clean with good care, and washing and scalding them well with salt and water. As soon as the operation of churning is performed, the butter should be washed immediately in several waters, till thoroughly cleansed from the milk, which should be forced out with a flat wooden ladle, or skimming dish, provided with a short handle. This should be quickly performed, with as little working of the butter as possible; for if it be too much beaten and turned, it will become tough and gluey, which greatly debases its quality. To beat it up with the hand is an indelicate practice, as the butter cannot fail to imbibe the animal effluvia: a warm hand especially will soften it, and make it appear greasy. If the heat of the weather should render it too soft to receive the impression of the mould, it may be put into small vessels, and allowed to swim in a trough of cold water, provided the butter do not come in contact with the water, which would diminish some of its best qualities. A little common salt must be worked up in the butter at the time of making it, and care must be taken not to handle it too much. Meat hung in a dairy will taint the air, and spoil the milk. – See Butter, Cheese, Churning, &c.
DAMP BEDS. Of all other means of taking cold, damp beds are the most dangerous, and persons who keep them in their houses are guilty of a species of murder, though it unfortunately happens that no housewife is willing to acknowledge that her beds were ever damp. There is however no other effectual way of preventing the dreadful effects so often experienced in this way, than by keeping the beds in constant use, or causing them frequently to be slept in till they are wanted by a stranger. In inns, where the beds are used almost every night, nothing more is necessary than to keep the rooms well aired, and the linen quite dry. If a bed be suspected of dampness, introduce a glass goblet between the sheets with its bottom upwards, immediately after the warming pan is taken out. After a few minutes, if any moisture adheres to the inside of the glass, it is a certain sign that the bed is damp: but if only a slight steam appears, all is safe. If a goblet be not at hand, a looking glass will answer the purpose. The safest way in all such cases is to take off the sheets, and sleep between the blankets.
DAMP HOUSES. Nothing is more common than for persons to hazard their lives by inhabiting a dwelling almost as soon as the plasterer or the painter has performed his work, and yet this ought to be guarded against with the utmost care. The custom of sitting in a room lately washed, and before it is thoroughly dried, is also highly injurious to health. Colds occasioned by these means often bring on asthmas and incurable consumptions.
DAMP WALLS. When a house has undergone repairs, the walls are apt to become damp, as well as when it has been new built. To prevent the ill effects, powder some glass fine, mix it with slacked lime, dry the mixture well in an iron pot, and pass it through a flour sieve. Then boil some tar with a little grease for a quarter of an hour, and make a cement of the whole together. Care must be taken to prevent any moisture from mixing with the cement, which must be used as soon as made. Lay it on the damp part of the wall like common plaster about a foot square at a time, or it will quickly become too hard for use: if the wall be very wet, a second coating will be required. Common hair mortar may then be laid on, with the addition of a little Paris plaster, which will prevent the walls in future from becoming damp.
DAMSON CHEESE. Pick the damsons clean, bake them slowly, till they may be rubbed through a cullender, leaving nothing but the skins and stones. Boil the pulp and juice three hours over a slow fire, with some moist sugar, and keep it stirring to prevent burning. Blanch the kernels, and mix them with the jam a few minutes before it be taken off the fire. Put it into cups, tie it down with writing paper dipped in brandy, and the cheese will keep several years, if kept in a dry place.
DAMSON PUDDING. Line a bason with tolerably thin paste, fill with the fruit, and cover the paste over it. Tie a cloth tight over, and boil till the fruit is done enough.
DAMSON WINE. Take a considerable quantity of damsons and common plums inclining to ripeness; slit them in halves, so that the stones may be taken out, then mash them gently, and add a little water and honey. Add to every gallon of the pulp a gallon of spring water, with a few bay leaves and cloves: boil the mixture, and add as much sugar as will sweeten it, skim off the froth, and let it cool. Now press the fruit, squeezing out the liquid part; strain all through a fine cloth, and put the water and juice together in a cask. Having allowed the whole to stand and ferment for three or four days, fine it with white sugar, flour, and whites of eggs. Draw it off into bottles, then cork it well: in twelve days it will be ripe, and will taste like weak port, having a flavour of canary.
DAMSONS PRESERVED. To keep damsons for winter pies, put them in small stone jars, or wide-mouthed bottles; set them up to their necks in a boiler of cold water, and scald them. Next day, when perfectly cold, fill up the bottles with spring water, and close them down. – Another way is to boil one third as much sugar as fruit over a slow fire, till the juice adheres to the fruit, and forms a jam. Keep it in small jars in a dry place. If too sweet, mix with it some of the fruit done without sugar. – Or choose some pots of equal size top and bottom, sufficient to hold eight or nine pounds each. Put in the fruit about a quarter up, strew in a quarter of the sugar, then another quantity of fruit, and so on till all of both are in. The proportion of sugar is to be three pounds to nine pounds of fruit. Set the jars in the oven, and bake the fruit quite through. When cold, put a piece of clean-scraped stick into the middle of the jar, and let the upper part stand above the top. Cover the fruit with writing paper, and pour melted mutton-suet over, full half an inch thick. Keep the jars in a cool dry place, and use the suet as a cover, which may be drawn up by the stick, if a forked branch be left to prevent its slipping out.
DAVENPORT FOWLS. Hang up young fowls for a night. Take the liver, hearts, and tenderest parts of the gizzards, and shred them small, with half a handful of young clary, an anchovy to each fowl, an onion, and the yolks of four eggs boiled hard, seasoning the whole with pepper, salt, and mace. Stuff the fowls with this mixture, and sew up the vents and necks quite close, that the water may not get in. Boil them in salt and water till almost done; then drain them, and put them into a stewpan with butter enough to brown them. Serve them with fine melted butter, and a spoonful of ketchup of either sort, in the dish.
DEBILITY. A general relaxation of the nervous system is the source of numerous disorders, and requires a treatment as various as the causes on which it depends. In general, gentle heat possesses both stimulating