Dishes & Beverages of the Old South Part 6

_Baked Eggs_: These most nearly approximate the flavor of roasted ones.

Break fresh eggs at the small ends, drain away the whites, break down the sh.e.l.ls to deepish cups, each with a yolk at bottom, sprinkle yolks lightly with salt and pepper, add a bit of b.u.t.ter to each, then set sh.e.l.ls upright, close over the bottom of a pan, pop the pan into a hot oven, bake twenty minutes, and serve piping hot. This Mammy gave us to keep from wasting yolks when wedding or Christmas cake demanded many whites for frosting.

_Potato Egg Puffs_: Into a quart of rich and highly seasoned mashed potatoes, beat two eggs, then divide into equal portions--six or eight.

With lightly floured hands make each portion into a ball, set the b.a.l.l.s in a baking dish, then press into each a hard-boiled egg. Lay a bit of b.u.t.ter on each egg, and dredge lightly with salt and pepper. Bake in a quick oven until the potato is brown and light--it ought to rise up like a fat apple.

_Egg Dumplings_: Cousins-germane to the puffs but richer--will serve indeed for the meat course of a plain dinner. Mix the potato well with half its bulk of finely chopped cold meat, the leaner the better, bind with beaten eggs, then divide and roll each portion around a hard-boiled egg, lay the dumplings in a greased and floured pan, giving them plenty of room, pour around them a good gravy, or else a rich tomato sauce, then bake ten to twenty minutes in a hot oven.

_Egg Spread_: Spread a flat pan an inch deep with rich mashed potato, sprinkle with pepper and salt, then cover the top with eggs hard boiled, and cut in half. Set them yolk up. Put salt, pepper and b.u.t.ter on each yolk, and bake ten minutes in a warm oven. Or if soft eggs are preferred, make depressions in the potato with the back of a spoon, break an egg in each, dust with pepper and salt, add a dot of b.u.t.ter and bake five minutes. If the potatoes are wanted brown, bake them ten minutes after making the depressions, then put in the eggs and bake soft or hard at will.

_Poached Eggs_: These require a deep skillet, three parts full of water on the bubbling boil, which is slightly salted and well dashed with vinegar. Break all the eggs separately before putting one in. Slip them in, one after the other, quickly, taking care not to break yolks, keep the boiling hard, and use a knife or spoon to prevent the whites from cooking together. Take out in six to seven minutes, using a skimmer and draining well, trim rags off white, lay in a deep hot dish, and pour over real melted b.u.t.ter, made with b.u.t.ter, hot water, salt, pepper, lemon juice or vinegar, and a dash of tabasco. Send to table covered--a poached egg chilled has lost its charm. Or you may serve the eggs on squares of hot, well-b.u.t.tered toast, which have been sprinkled thickly with grated cheese, then set for a minute inside a hot oven. Served thus, pa.s.s the melted b.u.t.ter with them, as if poured over, they might be too rich for some palates.

_Egg Fours_: Cut hard-boiled eggs in four lengthwise, mix yolks with an equal bulk of sardines, drained, freed of skin and bone, and minced fine. Season with salt, pepper, lemon juice, or vinegar, and olive oil.

Add minced olives if you like. The mixture must be soft, but not too soft to shape well. Shape it into small ovals, using two spoons, and lay an oval in each quarter of the whites. Put very narrow strips of pimento on the ovals, then sprinkle them thickly with grated cheese--Edam is good for such use. Set in a baking dish and cook two to four minutes in a hot oven. If wanted extra tasty, as for a relish before dinner, set the fours on narrow strips of toast, spread with made mustard, well-mixed with finely minced very sour cuc.u.mber pickle.

Bacon sliced thin, fried crisp without scorching, and finely minced can take the place of sardines. Indeed, in making fours the widest lat.i.tude prevails--you can vary flavors and proportions almost infinitely. Onion, even a suspicion of garlic, tabasco, Cayenne vinegar, walnut catsup, or Worcester can be added. Capers mixed through the ma.s.s make it wonderfully piquant. But things which need to be crisply fresh, such as celery and lettuce, must be let severely alone.

_Stuffed Eggs_: Staple for picnics, and barbecues. Boil twenty minutes, throw instantly in cold water, and sh.e.l.l immediately. Halve, mash yolks while hot with a plentiful seasoning of b.u.t.ter, pepper, salt, a little onion juice, capers or bigger pickle finely minced, and pimentos cut small. Work the seasoning well through, then shape into b.a.l.l.s yolk-size, put each between two half-whites, and fasten together with a couple of tooth picks. Wrap each as finished in wax paper, and keep cool until needed. Here may be a good place to say that the quicker a hard-boiled egg is got out of its sh.e.l.l after chilling, the better and more delicate will be its flavor.

_Fried Eggs_: Anybody, almost, can fry an egg wrong. It takes some skill to fry one exactly right. Have the frying pan covered with grease, hot, but not scorching, slip in the eggs, previously broken separately, taking pains not to break yolks, sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper, keep edges from running together, then when they have hardened underneath, dip hot grease over the tops, keeping on till the white sets. If the heat is right the eggs will not stick to the pan. Cook as hard as is desirable, take up with a cake-turner, and lay in a shallow pan, lined with soft clean paper. Keep hot while they drain--it takes a minute or so--then remove to a blazing hot dish, and serve. If ham goes with them lay it in the middle, with eggs all around it. Triangles of fried toast in between look and taste well at breakfast.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Soups, Salads, Relishes_]

_Vegetable Soup_: Cut into joints two fat chickens three parts grown, salt and pepper, and lay aside while you fry in a deep pot half a pound streaky bacon. Take out when crisp, put in the chicken, turning it so as to brown it all over. Put in a thick slice of ham, let it also brown a bit, do the same with four sliced onions--mild ones--then add two gallons cold water, half a teaspoonful salt, two pods red pepper, a dozen whole pepper corns, and two sprigs of parsley. Keep at a gentle boil for an hour, then put in two small heads of tender cabbage finely shredded, and six white potatoes, peeled and sliced a quarter-inch thick. Fifteen minutes later put in a quart of string beans, broken short, a pint of sh.e.l.led lima beans, a stalk of celery cut fine lengthwise, and a dozen tomatoes, peeled and sliced. Follow them in ten minutes with a pint of tender okra sliced--next add a little later the pulp from a dozen ears of green corn, slit lengthwise and sc.r.a.ped. Stir almost constantly with a long-handled skimmer, after the corn pulp is in. If the skimmer brings up chicken bones, throw them aside. Just before serving put in a large spoonful of b.u.t.ter, rolled in flour.

Taste, add salt if required. Serve very hot with corn hoe cake and cider just beginning to sparkle. If there is soup enough for everybody, nothing else will be wanted.

_Black Turtle Bean Soup_: Pick and wash clean, one quart black turtle beans, soak overnight in three quarts cold water, and put on to boil next morning in the soaking water. When it boils add three onions sliced, one carrot sc.r.a.ped and cut up, a stalk or so of celery, three sprigs of parsley, and one tomato, fresh or canned. Boil slowly four to five hours, until the beans are tender, filling up with cold water as that in the kettle wastes. When the beans are very soft, strain all through a fine collander, mas.h.i.+ng through beans and vegetables, add a quart of very good soup stock, also a bay leaf, and boil up hard half a minute before serving. Put into each soup plate a slice of lemon, a slice of hard-boiled egg, and a tablespoonful of sherry wine before adding the soup.

_Gumbo_: Cut a tender, fat chicken, nearly grown, into joints, season well with salt and pepper, and fry for ten minutes in the fat from half a pound of bacon, with two thick slices of ham. Then add two onions chopped fine, six large ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped, adding with them their juice, half a large pod of mild red pepper, cut small, a teaspoonful of minced thyme and parsley mixed, a pint of tender sliced okra, stemmed and cut lengthwise. Cook altogether, watching all the time, and stirring constantly to prevent scorching until everything is well-browned. Then add three quarts fresh-boiled water, on the full boil, set the pot where it will barely simmer, and cook an hour longer, taking the same pains against scorching. Rice to eat with the gumbo--it must never be cooked in the pot--needs to be washed until the water runs clear from it, drained, then tossed into a wide kettle of water on the bubbling boil, and cooked for twenty minutes. The water must be salted to taste. Drain the rice in a collander, set it after draining in the oven for a minute. The grains should stand out separate, but be very tender. Rice thus cooked, and served with plenty of b.u.t.ter, is excellent as a vegetable.

_Wedding Salad_: Roast unstuffed, three young tender turkeys, or six full grown chickens. Take the white meat only, cut it fine with shears, cutting across the grain, while hot. Let cool, then mix it with ten hearts of crisp celery cut in bits, two heads of tender white cabbage, finely chopped, rejecting hard stalks--use three heads if very small--and set in a cool place. For the dressing boil thirty fresh eggs twenty minutes, throw in cold water, sh.e.l.l, take out the yolks, saving the white for garnis.h.i.+ng, mash the yolks while hot very smooth with a pound and a half of best b.u.t.ter, season them well with salt, pepper, a little dry mustard, celery seed, and, if at hand, a dash of walnut catsup, but not enough to discolor. Add also a teaspoonful of sugar--this to blend flavors only. Add a little at a time enough warm vinegar to make as thick as cream. Chill, and pour over the salad, mix well through, then heap it in a big gla.s.s bowl, lined with partly white lettuce leaves, make a wreath of leaves around the top, and in serving, lay a larger lettuce leaf on each plate, filling it with the yellow-white salad.

_Fruit Salad_: Wash well a very ripe juicy pineapple, let dry, then shred with a fork, holding the crown in the left hand firmly, while you pull away sections with the fork in the right. Thus you avoid taking any of the hard center. Peel the sections delicately after they are separated, and cut them in long thin slivers, with the grain. Arrange these slivers star-shape upon lettuce leaves in the plates, lay a very narrow slip of pimento--sweet red pepper,--between each two of them, then fill in the points of the stars with grape-fruit pulp, freed of skin and seed, and broken into convenient sized bits. Lay more pimento strips upon it. Set on ice till ready to serve, then drench with sweet French dressing.

_Sweet French Dressing_: Mix well a scant teaspoonful of granulated sugar, the same of dry mustard, half a teaspoonful salt, as much black pepper and paprika mixed, put in the bottom of a deep small bowl, and stir for two minutes. Wet with claret vinegar, adding it gradually, and stirring smooth. Make as thick as cream. Add twenty drops tabasco, twenty drops onion juice, the strained juice of half a lemon, and half a teaspoonful of brandy, rum or whiskey. Mix well, then add, tablespoonful at a time, a gill of salad oil, stirring hard between spoonfuls. Put in more vinegar, more oil--the seasoning suffices for half a pint of dressing. Stir till it thickens--it should be like an emulsion when poured upon the salad. Keep on ice. The oil and vinegar will separate, but the dressing can be brought back by stirring hard.

_Banana and Celery Salad_: Chill heart celery and very ripe bananas, slice thin crosswise, mingling the rounds well. Pile on lettuce leaves, and cover with French dressing, into which finely grated cheese has been scantly stirred. This dressing with cheese is fine for tender Romaine, also for almost any sort of cooked vegetable used as salad.

_Red and White Salad_: Make cups from lettuce hearts, fasten them to the plate, with a drop of melted b.u.t.ter, fill lightly with grape-fruit pulp, and set a tiny red beet, boiled tender, in the middle. Have a very sharp French dressing made with oil lemon juice and Tarragon vinegar. Pa.s.s with this cheese straws, or toasted cracker sprinkled lightly with Parmesan cheese.

_Pineapple Salad_: Pare and core a very ripe, sweet pineapple, cut in slices crosswise, lay the slices in a bowl, with a sprinkle of sugar, half a cup rum or sherry, all the juice shed in cutting up, and a grate of nutmeg. Let stand till morning, cool, but not on ice. Make rosettes of small lettuce leaves in the plates, lay a slice of pineapple on each, fill the hole in the center with pink pimento cheese. Make the cheese into a ball the size of a marble, and stick in it a tiny sprig of celery top. Put a little of the syrup from the bowl in each plate, then finish with very sharp French dressing. Make the pimento cheese by grinding fine half a can of pimento, and mixing it through two cakes of cream cheese, softening the cheese with French dressing, and seasoning it to taste.

_Cold Slaw_: (V. Moroso.) Shave very fine half a medium sized head of tender cabbage, put in a bowl, and cover with this dressing. Melt over hot water a heaping tablespoonful of b.u.t.ter, with two tablespoonfuls sugar, a saltspoon of pepper, a teaspoonful of salt, dash of red pepper, and scant teaspoonful dry mustard. Mix smooth, then add gradually four tablespoonfuls vinegar, mix well, then put in the yolk of a raw egg, beating it in hard. Cook till creamy, but not too thick. Take from fire, and add if you like, two tablespoonfuls cream, but it is not essential--the dressing is good without it.

_Tomato Soy_: Take one gallon solid, ripe tomatoes, peeled and sliced, or four canfuls put up in gla.s.s, put in a preserving kettle with a quart of sliced onions, two tablespoonfuls salt, as much moist sugar, teaspoonful black pepper, saltspoon paprika, four hearts of celery cut fine, a tablespoonful of pounded cloves, alspice, mace, grated nutmeg, and cinnamon mixed. Stir well together and cook slowly, taking care not to burn, until reduced one-half. Dry mustard or mustard seed can be added, but many palates do not relish them. After boiling down add a quart of very sharp vinegar, stir well through, skim if froth rises, bottle hot, and seal. This keeps a long time in a dark cool place.

_Table Mustard_: Mix well together two tablespoonfuls dry mustard, scant teaspoon sugar, half a teaspoon salt. Wet smooth, to a very stiff paste with boiling water, then add either a teaspoon of onion juice, or a clove of garlic mashed, stir well through, add little by little, a tablespoonful olive oil, then thin, with very sharp vinegar, added gradually so as not to lump nor curdle, to the consistency of thin cream. Put in a gla.s.s jar, seal tight and let stand a week. A month is better--indeed, the mustard improves with age if not permitted to dry up.

_Cabbage Pickle_: Shred enough tender cabbage to make four quarts, put with it four large green tomatoes, sliced thin, six large onions, chopped fine, three green peppers also chopped, rejecting the seed, two ounces white mustard seed, half-ounce celery seed, quarter-ounce turmeric, three tablespoonfuls salt, two pounds white sugar, two quarts vinegar. Put all in a preserving kettle, set it upon an asbestos mat over a slow fire, and cook gently for several hours, stirring so it shall not scorch. It must be tender throughout but not mushy-soft.

_Cauliflower Pickle_: Drop two heads cauliflower in salted boiling water, cook fifteen minutes, take up, drop in cold water, separate into neat florets, and pack down in a clean crock. Pour upon the florets, hot, a quart of vinegar, seasoned with a mixture of two tablespoonfuls salad oil, teaspoonful dry mustard, tablespoonful sugar, teaspoonful salt, half-teaspoonful onion juice, half-teaspoonful black pepper, dash of paprika, ten drops tabasco. Bring all to a boil, and pour over the pickle, first strewing well through it blade mace, whole cloves, alspice and cinnamon, broken small but not powdered.

_Pear Relish_: Wash and stem a gallon of sound ripe, but not mellow Seckel pears, remove the blossoms with a very sharp narrow pen-knife, and stick a clove in each cut. Drain, and drop into a syrup, made of three pounds of sugar and a quart of vinegar. Bring to a quick boil, skim, and set back to simmer. Add after skimming, cloves, alspice, mace, ginger, cinnamon, and black pepper, pounded small but not powdered. Cut up a large sweet red pepper, and drop in the shreds. Let cook till the pears are tender. If the syrup is thin, add more sugar--some pears yield more juice than others. Sliced lemon gives a piquant tang, but is optional. Put in gla.s.s or stone jars, and cover tight, laying a brandy paper on top.

_Cherries Piquant_: Wash well, and stem but do not pit, half a gallon ripe Morello cherries. Drain well, strew spices well through them, lay thin sliced lemon on top, add a dozen whole pepper corns, and a tiny pod of Cayenne pepper, then pour over a pint of sharp vinegar, boiled with four pounds of sugar, and skimmed clean. Let stand all night, drain off syrup in the morning, boil up, skim, and pour again over the fruit. Next day, put all in a kettle, and cook for fifteen minutes, then put in gla.s.s jars, seal and keep dark. Especially good with game or any meat highly seasoned.

_Gooseberry Jam Spiced_: Wash, and nub half a gallon of green gooseberries, picked just before they ripen. Put them in a kettle with six large cups of sugar, a cup of water, half a teaspoonful each of cloves, alspice, mace, grated nutmeg, and cinnamon, the grated yellow peel of an orange and the strained juice. Cook slowly until thick--it should jelly when dropped on a plate. Pack in small jars. One of the very finest accompaniments to any sort of fowl. By leaving out the spices, and merely cooking the berries thick enough to cut like cheese, it is as fine as _bar le duc_ for serving with salad.

_Frozen Cranberry Sauce_: (Mrs. R. Heim.) Gives a new tang to game, roast turkey, capon or duck. Cook a quart of cranberries until very soft in one pint water, strain through coa.r.s.e sieve, getting all the pulp, add to it one and a half pints sugar, the juice--strained--of four lemons, one quart boiling water, bring to a boil, skim clean, let cool, and freeze rather soft.

"_Apple Sauce Gone To Heaven_": Thus a poet names it, though I, the architect thereof, insist that it is wholly and beautifully mundane. To make it, pare eight firm apples, the higher-flavored the better, core, drop into cold water, as pared, let stand till you make the syrup. Take a cup of sugar to each two apples and a cup of water to each two cups of sugar. Bring to a boil, skim, clean twice, then throw in half a dozen blades of mace, bits of thin yellow peel from two lemons, a few bits of stick cinnamon, and one pepper corn--no more. Stick four cloves in each apple, drop them in the syrup, which must be on the bubbling boil. After the apples are in--they should just cover the pan, add the strained juice of two lemons. Boil hard for five minutes, turn over the apples, simmer till done--they will look clear all through. Skim out with a perforated ladle, letting all syrup drain away from them, arrange in a deepish gla.s.s dish, or pile on a gla.s.s platter. Boil the syrup until it jellies when dropped on a plate, then dip it by spoonfuls over the apples, letting it harden as it is dipped.

Another way, and easier, is to wash and core the apples, without peeling, stick in the cloves, put in an earthen or agate baking dish, add the sugar, water, spices, cover close, and set in a hot oven. Cook until the apples are soft through, then uncover, and crisp a little on top. The peel will be edible, and the flavor richer than when boiled, but the dish is not so decorative.

_Spiced Grapes_: Wash and drain sound full-ripe grapes, pick from the stems, then pop out the grapes singly from the hulls. Save the hulls and juice. Put the pulp and seeds over the fire, cook until soft, strain through a colander to remove the seed, then add the pulp to the hulls and juice, put all over the fire, with equal weight of sugar, and spices to taste. I like cloves, alspice, mace and cinnamon, all pounded small, but not powdered. Cook until thick, take care not to burn, put into gla.s.ses like jelly, and serve with any sort of meat, or as a sweet.

Wild grapes washed, picked from stems, stewed and pa.s.sed through a colander, furnish a pulp that is worth sugar, spices and so on. Cook as directed for vineyard grapes. By leaving out the most part of spices, and putting in vinegar, a cupful to the quart of syrup, the result is a very piquant jelly, or more properly, fruit cheese.

_Sweet-Sour Pears_: The pears must be ripe, but very firm. If large, pare and quarter, cutting out the core, stick a clove in each quarter, and drop as pared in cold ginger tea. If small or medium, wash instead of paring, take out cores, stick two cloves in each cavity, pack close in the kettle and cover when all are in with strained ginger tea. Boil in the tea fifteen minutes, until a fork will pierce without too much exertion. Skim out then, pack in jars, strewing spices liberally through, then cover with vinegar boiling hot, to which you had added a cupful of sugar for each quart. Let stand twenty-four hours, drain off, boil, and pour over again. Do this three times, then put all in the kettle, bring to a boil, cook five minutes, and put while hot in clean stone jars.

_Spiced Plums_: All manner of plums, even the red wild fruit, make the finest sort of relishes when cooked properly. Wash, pick, and weigh, take four pounds of sugar to five of fruit, with what spices you choose, never forgetting a tiny pod of Cayenne pepper, put all over the fire, let boil slowly, skimming off froth. Stir with a perforated skimmer--it will take out the most part of stones. A few stones left in give a fine bitter almond flavor after the plums have stood a while. Take care not to scorch, cook until very thick, then add strong vinegar, a cupful to the half-gallon of fruit. Boil three minutes longer, put hot into well-scalded jars, lay brandy paper over, or seal with paraffin.

_Baked Peaches_: Especially fine with barbecued lamb or roast duck or smothered chicken. Peel one dozen large, ripe, juicy peaches, stick two cloves in each, set in an agate or earthen pan they will just fill, add two cups sugar, a tablespoonful b.u.t.ter, a very little water, and a good strewing of mace and lemon peel. Cover close, and bake until done. Serve hot. Instead of b.u.t.ter, a gill of whiskey may be used, putting it in just before the peaches are taken up, and letting them stand covered until the spirit goes through them. So prepared, they are better cold than warm. The pits flavor the fruit so delicately they should never be removed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Vegetables, Fruit Desserts, Sandwiches_]

_Tomato Layer_: Peel and slice a dozen meaty tomatoes, slice thin six mild onions, cut the corn from half a dozen large ears, saving the milk.

Cover an earthen baking dish with a layer of tomatoes, season well with salt and pepper, also the least suspicion of sugar. Lay onion slices over, sprinkle lightly with salt, then add a layer of corn, seasoning it with salt and a little sugar. Repeat till the dish is full. Pour over the corn milk, the tomato juice, and a heaping tablespoonful of melted b.u.t.ter. Bake in a hot oven half an hour, covering it for twenty minutes, then browning uncovered. When corn is not in season, very crisp brown bread crumbs may take its place. But it should be against the law to put soft crumbs or any sort of bread uncrisped, into cooked tomatoes.

A green pepper shredded and mixed through the layers adds to the flavor--for the devotees of green peppers.

_Corn Pudding_: Slit lengthwise the grains in eight large ears of corn, sc.r.a.pe out the pulp carefully, saving all milk that runs. The corn should be full, but not the least hard--if it has reached the dough state, the grains will keep shape. Beat three eggs very light, with half a teaspoonful salt, a tablespoonful sugar, plenty of black pepper, and paprika, half a cup of very soft b.u.t.ter, and half a cup sweet cream. Add the corn pulp and milk, stir well together--if too thick, thin with a little milk. Pour into a pudding dish, cover and bake ten minutes, then uncover, and bake until done.

_Fried Corn_: Fry crisp, half-pound streaky bacon, take up, and put into the fat, bubbling hot, eight large ears of corn cut from the cob, and seasoned with salt and black pepper. Add also the corn-milk, stir well together for five minutes, then put an asbestos mat under the skillet and let stand till the corn forms a thick brown crust over the bottom.

Pour out, loosen this crust with a knife, lay on top the corn, lay on also the crisp bacon, and serve very hot. A famous breakfast dish down south all through "Roas'in' ear time." That is to say, from July to October.

_Hulled Corn_: Known otherwise as lye hominy, and samp. Put a pint of clean strong wood ashes into half a gallon of water, boil twenty minutes--or until the water feels slippery. Let settle, drain off the clear lye, and pour it upon as much white flint corn, sh.e.l.led and picked, as it will cover. Let stand until the hulls on the grains slip under pressure--commonly twelve to twenty-four hours. Drain off lye, cover with cold water, rubbing and scrubbing the grains between the hands, till all are free of husks. Soak them in clear water, changing it every few hours till no taste of lye remains. Then boil slowly in three times its bulk of water, adding a little salt, but not much, until very tender. A grain should mash between finger and thumb. Fill up as the water boils away, and take care not to scorch. Cool uncovered, and keep cool. To cook, dip out a dishful, fry it in bubbling bacon fat as directed for corn. Or warm in a double boiler, and serve with b.u.t.ter and sugar or cream and sugar, as a cereal. Use also as a vegetable the same as rice or green corn. Hominy pudding, baked brown, and highly seasoned, helps out a scant dinner wonderfully, as corn is the most heating of grains, as well as one of the most nutritious.

_Steamed Potatoes_: Wash clean a dozen well-grown new potatoes, steam until a fork will pierce, dry in heat five minutes, then peel, and throw into a skillet, with a heaping tablespoonful of b.u.t.ter, well-rolled in flour, half a pint of rich milk, ten drops onion juice, salt and pepper to taste, and a teaspoonful of chopped parsley. The sauce must be bubbling when the potatoes are put in. Toss them in it for five minutes, put in deep dish and pour the gravy over. Serve very hot.

_Candied Sweet Potatoes_: Boil medium potatoes of even size, till a fork will pierce--steaming is better though a bit more trouble--throw in cold water for a minute, peel, and brush over with soft b.u.t.ter, then lay separately in a wide skillet, with an inch of very rich syrup over the bottom and set over slow fire. Turn the potatoes often in the syrup, letting it coat all sides. Keep turning them until candied and a little brown. If wanted very rich put b.u.t.ter and lemon juice in the syrup when making it. Blade mace also flavors it very well.

_Tipsy Potatoes_: Choose rather large potatoes, peel, and cut across into round slices about half an inch thick. Pack these in a baking dish with plenty of sugar, and b.u.t.ter, mace, yellow lemon peel, pounded cloves, and a single pepper corn. Add half a cup boiling water, cover and bake till a fork pierces, then uncover, add a gla.s.s of rum, and keep hot, but not too hot, until serving time. Or you can use half a pint of claret, instead of the boiling water. Still another way, is to mix a gla.s.s of sherry with a spoonful of cream, and add it to the dish five minutes before it goes to table. Sweet cider can take the place of wine. So can lemon or orange juice. But to my thinking, the Demon Rum, or his elder brother whiskey, is best of all.