Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages Part 32

RECEIPT 19.--Apple pudding may be made by alternating a layer of prepared apples with a layer of dough made of wheat meal, till you have filled a tin pudding boiler. Boil it three hours.

RECEIPT 20.--Sago pudding: Take half a pint of sago and a quart of milk.

Boil half the milk, and pour it on the sago; let it stand half an hour; then add the remainder of the milk. Sweeten to your taste.

RECEIPT 21.--Tapioca pudding may be prepared in a similar manner.

RECEIPT 22.--To make cracker pudding, to a quart of milk add four thick large coa.r.s.e meal crackers broken in pieces, a little sugar, and a little flour, and bake it one hour and thirty minutes.

RECEIPT 23.--Sweet apple pudding is made by cutting in pieces six sweet apples, and putting them and half a pint of Indian meal, with a little salt, into a pint of milk, and baking it about three hours.

RECEIPT 24.--Sunderland pudding is thus made: Take about two thirds of a good-sized teacup full of flour, three eggs, and a pint of milk. Bake about fifteen minutes in cups. Dress it as you please--sweet sauce is preferred.

RECEIPT 25.--Arrow root pudding may be made by adding two ounces of arrow root, previously well mixed with a little cold milk, to a pint of milk boiling hot. Set it on the fire; let it boil fifteen or twenty minutes, stirring it constantly. When cool, add three eggs and a little sugar, and bake it in a moderate oven.

RECEIPT 26.--Boiled arrow root pudding: Mix as before, only do not let it quite boil. Stir it briskly for some time, after putting it on the fire the second time, at a heat of not over 180 degrees. When cooled, add three eggs and a little salt.

RECEIPT 27.--Cottage pudding: Two pounds of potatoes, pared, boiled, and mashed, one pint of milk, three eggs, and two ounces of sugar, and if you choose, a little salt. Bake it three quarters of an hour.

RECEIPT 28.--Snow b.a.l.l.s: Pare and core as many large apples as there are to be b.a.l.l.s; wash some rice--about a large spoonful to an apple will be enough; boil it in a little water with a pinch of salt, and drain it.

Spread it on cloths, put on the apples, and boil them an hour. Before they are turned out of the cloths, dip them into cold water.

Macaroni is made into puddings a great deal, and so is vermicelli; but they are at best very indifferent dishes. Those who live solely to eat may as well consult "Vegetable Cookery," where they will find indulgences enough and too many, even though flesh and fish are wholly excluded. They will find soups, pancakes, omelets, fritters, jellies, sauces, pies, puddings, dumplings, tarts, preserves, salads, cheese-cakes, custards, creams, buns, flummery, pickles, syrups, sherbets, and I know not what. You will find them by hundreds. And you will find directions, too, for preparing almost every vegetable production of both hemispheres. And if you have brains of your own you may invent a thousand new dishes every day for a long time without exhausting the vegetable kingdom.

DIVISION V.--PIES.

Pies, as commonly made, are vile compounds. The crust is usually the worst part. The famous Peter Parley (S. G. Goodrich, Esq.), in his Fireside Education, represents pies, cakes, and sweetmeats as totally unfit for the young.

Within a few years attempts have been made to get rid of the crust of pies--the abominations of the crust, I mean--by using Indian meal sifted into the pans, etc.; but the plan has not succeeded. It is the pastry that gives pies their charm. Divest them of this, and people will almost as readily accept of plain ripe fruit, especially when baked, stewed, or in some other way cooked.

As pies are thus objectionable, and are, withal, a mongrel race, partaking of the nature both of bread and fruit, and yet, as such, unfit for the company of either, I will almost omit them. I will only mention two or three.

RECEIPT 1.--Squashes, boiled, mashed, strained, and mixed with milk or milk and water, in small quant.i.ty, may be made into a tolerable pie.

They may rest on a thick layer of Indian meal.

RECEIPT 2.--Pumpkins may be made into pies in a similar manner; but in general they are not so sweet as squashes.

RECEIPT 3.--Potato pie: Cut potatoes into squares, with one or two turnips sliced; add milk or cream, just to cover them; salt a little, and cover them with a bread crust. Sweet potatoes make far better pies than any other kind.

Almost any thing may be made into pies. Plain apple pies--so plain as to become mere apple sauce--are far from being very objectionable. See the next Cla.s.s of Foods.

CLa.s.s II.--FRUITS.

So far as fruits, at least in an uncooked state, have been used as food, they have chiefly been regarded as a dessert, or at most as a condiment.

Until within a few years, few regarded them as a princ.i.p.al article--as standing next to bread in point of importance. In treating of these substances as food, I shall simply divide them into Domestic and Foreign.

DIVISION I.--DOMESTIC FRUITS.

SECTION A.--_The large fruits--Apple, Pear, Peach, Quince, etc._

RECEIPT 1.--The apple. May be baked in tin pans, or in a common bake pan. The sweet apple requires a more intense heat than the sour. The skin may be removed before baking, but it is better to have it remain.

The best apple pie in the world is a baked apple.

RECEIPT 2.--It may be roasted before the fire, by being buried in ashes, or by throwing it upon hot coals, and quickly turning it. The last process is sometimes called _hunting_ it.

RECEIPT 3.--It may be boiled, either in water alone, or in water and sugar, or in water and mola.s.ses. In this case the skin is often removed, that the saccharine matter may the better penetrate the body of the apple.

RECEIPT 4.--It may also be pared and cored, and then stewed, either alone or with mola.s.ses, to form plain apple sauce--a comparatively healthy dish.

RECEIPT 5.--Lastly, it may be pared and cored, placed in a deep vessel, covered with a plain crust, as wheat meal formed into dough, and baked slowly. This forms a species of pie.

RECEIPT 6.--The pear is not, in every instance, improved by cookery.

Several species, however, are fit for nothing, till mid-winter, when they are either boiled, baked, or stewed.

The peach can hardly be cooked to advantage. It is sometimes cut up, and sprinkled with sugar and other substances.

RECEIPT 7.--A tolerably pleasant sauce can be made by stewing or baking the quince, and adding sugar or mola.s.ses, but it is not very wholesome.

SECTION B.--_The smaller fruits. The Strawberry, Cherry, Raspberry, Currant, Whortleberry, Mulberry, Blackberry, Bilberry, etc._

None of these, so far as I know, are improved by cookery. It is common to stew green currants, to make jams, preserves, sauces, etc., but this is all wrong. The great Creator has, in this instance, at least, done his own work, without leaving any thing for man to do.

There is one general law in regard to fruits, and especially these smaller fruits. Those which melt and dissolve most easily in the mouth, and leave no residuum, are the most healthy; while those which do not easily dissolve--which contain large seeds, tough or stringy portions, or hulls, or scales--are in the same degree indigestible.

I have said that fruits were next to bread in point of importance. They are to be taken, always, as part of our regular meals, and never between meals. Nor should they be eaten at the end of a meal, but either in the middle or at the beginning. And finally, they should be taken either at breakfast or dinner. According to the old adage, fruit is gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night.

DIVISION II.--FOREIGN FRUITS.

The more important of these are the banana, pine-apple, and orange, and fig, raisin, prune, and date. The first three need no cooking, two of the last four may be cooked. The date is one of the best--the orange one of the worst, because procured while green, and also because it is stringy.

RECEIPT 1.--The prune. Few things sit easier on the feeble or delicate stomach than the stewed prune. It should be stewed slowly, in very little water.

RECEIPT 2.--The good raisin is almost as much improved by stewing as the prune.

I do not know that the fig has ever yet been subjected to the processes of modern cookery. It is, however, with bread, a good article of food.

Fruits, in their juices, may be regarded as the milk of adults and old people, but are less useful to young children and to the _very_ old. But to be useful they must be perfectly ripe, and eaten in their season.

Thus used, they prevent a world of summer diseases--used improperly, they invite disease, and do much other mischief.

In general, fruits and milk do not go very well together. The baked sweet apple and whortleberry seem to be least objectionable.

CLa.s.s III.--ROOTS.