HSD Nine and Ten

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Section Nine: Advice to Employers with an Excerpt from The Cook’s Oracle

Editor’s Note: The first two paragraphs under “A Word to Heads of Families” appear to be Roberts’s own words, commenting on his writing and  introducing the Cook’s Oracle excerpt that follows.  Thomas Cosnett did not include advice to employers in his manual.

A WORD TO HEADS OF FAMILIES.

It will be evident to you, my respected employers, that the foregoing observations are thrown together in a very crude and imperfect manner. The writer has no pretensions as a scholar, but considerable experience as a servant, and it was his wish, however poorly he may have succeeded in the attempt, to convey the result of that experience to his fellow servants for their instruction and guidance. If he has succeeded in the slightest degree, he humbly thinks it will be more readily received and read by servants, for whom it was exclusively intended, than if written in highflown terms, or by one among yourselves. You, my respected masters and mistresses, will reap the principal advantage of the diffusion of a knowledge of their duties among servants, whose ignorance is sometimes very troublesome. The writer, however, has further endeavoured, in all cases, to enforce upon the minds of servants, in stating rules and duties, that ‘might is right ;’ that these rules are subject to modification and variation at your will and pleasure. ‘The servant is not greater than his master,’ neither are any rules or regulations  ; ‘new masters, new laws,’ and every servant must conform to those of the family where he takes up his residence, without demur or hesitation. 

On the other hand a few words might be said to masters and mistresses, in behalf of those who are dependent on them for their present, and often times for their eternal good. ‘The laborer is worthy of his hire,’ and should be treated in health or in sickness with pity and feeling ; if it is necessary to place servants under strict surveillance, let them at least be treated as fellow beings and candidates for a future world. It would be presumption in me, a servant, to urge aught on this subject to my superiors, I beg leave therefore respectfully to conclude with the following extract in behalf of the cook and other servants, taken from the said Oracle.

“A good dinner is one of the greatest enjoyments of human life ; and as the practice of cookery is attended with so many discouraging difficulties, so many disgusting and disagreeable circumstances, and even dangers, we ought to have some regard for those who encounter them, to procure us pleasure, and to reward their attention, by rendering their situation every way as comfortable and agreeable as we can. Mere money is a very inadequate compensation to a complete cook ; he who has preached integrity to those in the kitchen may be permitted to recommend liberality to those in the parlour ; they are indeed the sources of each other. Depend upon it, ‘true self-love and social, are the same ;’  ‘do as you would be done by ;’ give those you are obliged to trust, every inducement to be honest, and no temptation to play tricks.

When you consider that a good servant eats no more than a bad one, how much more waste is occasioned by provisions being dressed in a slovenly and unskilful manner, and how much a good cook (to whom the conduct of the kitchen is confided) can save you by careful management, no housekeeper will hardly deem it an unwise speculation, it is certainly an amiable experiment, to invite the honesty and industry of domestics, by setting them an example of liberality ; at least, show them, that ‘according to their pains, will be their gains.’ But trust not your servants with the secret of their own strengths ; importance of any kind, being what human frailty is least able to bear. 

Avoid all approaches towards familiarity, which to a proverb is accompanied by contempt, and soon breaks the neck of obedience.

Servants are more likely to be praised into good conduct, than scolded out of bad  ; always commend them when they do right ; to cherish the desire of pleasing in them, you must show them that you are pleased : –

‘Be to their faults a little blind

and to their virtues very kind.’

   By such conduct, ordinary servants will often be converted into good ones ; few are so hardened as not to feel gratified when they are kindly and liberally treated. 

It is a good maxim to select servants not younger than thirty ; before that age, however comfortable you may endeavour to make them, their want of experience, and the hope of something still better, prevents their being satisfied with their present state. After they have had the benefit of experience, if they are tolerably comfortable, they will endeavour to deserve the smiles of even a moderately kind master, for fear they may change for the worse.

Life may indeed be fairly divided into the seasons of hope and fear. In use, we hope every thing may be right ; in age we fear every thing will be wrong.

Do not discharge a good servant for a slight offense –

      ‘Bear and forbear, thus preached the stoic sages,

        And in two words include the sense of pages.’ – Pope

Human nature is the same in all stations ; if you can convince your servants, that you have a generous and considerate regard for their health and comfort, why should you imagine that they will be insensible to the good they receive?

Impose no commands but what are reasonable, nor reprove but with justice and temper ; the best way to ensure which, is never to lecture them, till at least one day after they have offended you.

If they have any particular hardships to endure in your service, let them see that you are concerned for the necessity of imposing it. 

If they are sick, remember you are their patron as well as their master ; that only remit their labour, but give them all the assistance of food, physic, and every comfort in your power. Tender assiduity about an invalid is half a cure, it is a balsam to the mind, which has a most powerful effect on the body, soothes the sharpest pains, and strengthens beyond the richest cordial.

Ye, who think that to protect and encourage virtue, is the best preventative from vice, give your female servants liberal wages.

‘Charity should begin at home,’ – ‘prevention is preferable to cure,’ but I have no objection to see your names ornamenting the list of subscribers to foundling hospitals, and female penitentiaries. 

To say nothing of the deleterious vapours and pestilential exhalations of the charcoal, which soon undermine the health of the heartiest, the glare of a scorching fire, and the smoke so baneful to the eyes and the complexion, are continual and inevitable dangers ; and a cook must live in the midst of them, as a soldier on the field of battle, surrounded by bullets, and bombs, and Congreve’s rockets, with this only difference, that for the first, every day is a fighting day, that her warfare is almost always without glory, and most praiseworthy achievements pass not only without reward but frequently without even thanks ; for the most consummate cook is, alas ! seldom noticed by the master, or heard of by the guests ; who, while they are eagerly devouring his turtle, and drinking his wine, care very little who dressed the one, or sent the other.    

The greatest care should be taken by the man of fashion, that his cook’s health be preserved. Cleanliness, and a proper ventilation to carry off smoke and steam, should be particularly attended to in the construction of a kitchen ; the grand scene of action, the fire place, should be placed where it may receive plenty of light. Hitherto the contrary has prevailed, and the poor cook is continually basted with her own perspiration.

It is almost impossible for a cook to attend to the business of the kitchen with any certainty of perfection if employed in other household concerns. It is a service of such importance, and so difficult to perform even tolerably well, that it is sufficient to engross the entire attention of one person.

This is a maxim which is neither understood nor admitted in some families, where the cook is expected to be a house servant also, and coals are meted out to her by the quart, and butter by the ounce, &c.

If the master and mistress of a family will sometimes condescend to make an amusement of this art, they will escape a number of disappointments, &c. which those who will not, must suffer, to the detriment of both their health and their fortune.”

Section Nine: Lehigh Coal Directions, Reprinted from the New York American

Editor’s Note: The anonymously authored article that follows Roberts’s three paragraph introduction,  appeared in the New York American in early 1826 and was reprinted in the New York Observer on March 18 and March 23, 1826.  

DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO MAKE A FIRE OF LEHIGH COAL.

And now, Joseph and David, I must address a few ‘last words’ to you on the subject of making coal fires. Having put down all that need be said in respect to employers and servants in their conduct towards each other, I wish to add some very superior directions for making fires of what is called anthracite coal, otherwise called Lehigh, Rhode Island, or any hard coal.

Very few servants at first understand the method of kindling and continuing a fire of Lehigh coal, many will never learn, and many more from erroneous instructions, whilst they think they understand it, make but a bungling piece of work of it. I had prepared some observations on this subject to be inserted among the directions and receipts, but have omitted them in order to give room to the following full account and directions, and as our book is intended to be useful to servants, it must be granted that a knowledge of how to make a Lehigh coal fire, when it is becoming so common in this country, is quite an acquisition.

I wish my fellow servants to read the rules very attentively. They are very humorous, but very true, and they lay down a plain and easy method for preparing and burning this kind of coal. These rules were first published in the ‘New York American,’ – and people thought them a burlesque upon the use of this kind of fuel, but experience has made them acknowledge that they are most excellent and true, and hundreds have enjoyed the comforts of a hard coal fire made according to the writer’s directions.

Chapter 1. – Of buying and breaking*

1. Buy from the vessel, if possible ; for a chaldron there is more than at the yard. And remember that every seller of coal is a cheat. 

2. Stand by and see that large pieces only are put into the cart, for a cart of very large pieces, when broken up, makes a cart and a quarter of small ones.

3. Refuse a load that appears to contain dust, because Lehigh dust is clear waste, and enough in all conscience is made in the breaking.

4. Break the coal before housing it, unless you would have to break it yourself at the risk of either eye.

5. Do not be hoaxed out of a dollar for a hammer made expressly for the purpose of breaking Lehigh, the family axe is just as good.

6. Do not take a man from the yard with his patent hammer, to break your coal for you, unless you would pay twice what the job is worth, and what a dozen, in less than five minutes after the coal is dumped, will offer to do it for.

7. In breaking, see that each piece is broken by itself on the pavement, and not as is usual, on the mass, unless you wish to burn half the coal as powder.

8. Make the man who breaks carry in as fast as he breaks, whereby much dust will be saved.

9. Let the pieces into which it is broken be about as large as your fist, if your hand is rather a small one ; otherwise, about the size of your wife’s, provided her hand is something larger than common ; or, about the size of a half-pint tumbler.

10. Watch the fellow who breaks, or he will not break half small enough – or he will break it on the mass – or he will use a bushel up as missiles against the boys, cows or pigs – or he will take care to wet it all in the gutter before he takes it up.

11. When the coal is in, proceed to the mystery of burning, which deserves a separate chapter. This subject, however, is better handled under the two heads, of kindling, and of replenishing and perpetuating.

*This coal is sold by weight in Boston, and broken up at the yard, at an extra charge of $.50 per ton.

Chapter II. – of the kindling

1. This is a great mystery, therefore proceed with caution and with a mind divested of all prejudice.

2. Let the grate be perfectly cleared of all foreign substances, and begin the fire at the bottom.

3. The best material for kindling is charcoal, unless perhaps dry hickory be preferred  ; the latter is much cheaper – not absolutely however, that I know of, but it is relatively. For, in relation to the cook, it may be affirmed that half the charcoal which you buy for kindling will go into the kitchen fire to save trouble. The cheapest method is this: by a load of dry hickory, stipulate that it shall be large, have it sawed three times – the wood will now be in junks, which you may defy the cook to burn – split it up as fast as wanted and no faster. Some say that Liverpool is the cheapest kindler. It may be at six dollars a chaldron, but it is not at sixteen dollars: and when you must have would to kindle the Liverpool.

4. Having got the kindling, proceed to the grate. Throw into it first live coals from the kitchen, then lay on the charcoal or hickory, be not too sparing, – then place loosely, and with the fingers, fair pieces of Schuylkill, Lehigh, or Rhode Island of the orthodox size. I advised the use of the fingers, because the work is done quicker than with the tongs, from which the smooth Schuylkill perpetually slips. Let the coal be piled as high as the grate will allow. 

5. If you are in a hurry, put up the blower ; if not, do not use it, for the hard coal kindles much better without forcing. The blower makes a quicker fire, but a worse one, for the outside of the coals is burned before the inside is even heated. When the blower is removed, the heat suddenly subsides ; the coals (Lehigh especially) are found encrusted with a white coating of hard ashes, which renders them almost incombustible, and the fire afterwards becomes very dull.

6. If the process of kindling fails, begin all over again. Failure most frequently proceeds from stinginess in the material of kindling. Better be prodigal of it then have the fire go out, and the grate all disemboweled a second time. Horresco referens.

7. The fire now being well kindled – but this is the subject of another chapter.

Chapter III. – of replenishing and perpetuating.

1. The fire being now well under way, it will need to be fed but three times during the day and evening. The first replenishing should take place immediately after breakfast, when the family breaks up, the gentlemen retreating to the counting-room, office, or study, and the ladies to their dressing-rooms ; the second, about an hour before dinner ; the third, a little into the evening.

2. If my readers are willing so be truly economical, let them replenish a fourth time, viz. at going to bed – which I call the perpetuating process. Since if it be done properly, the fire need be kindled but once for the whole winter, say on the first day of November, and thus an immense amount of kindling matter may be saved.

3. The method of perpetuating is exceedingly simple, and consists merely in adding a few pieces of coal at 11 o’clock say, and then covering the whole with cinders and ashes, usque satictatum – i.e. till you have shoveled up as much as the grate can bear. In the morning all you have to do, is to clap on the blower, and presto, the fire before you is red hot. Following this plan, my parlour has always been comfortable at breakfast.

4. Let not the ladies murmur : the grate can still be cleaned. When the servant first approaches the grate in the morning, every thing is calm, quiet, slumbering and cool – you would hardly believe the fire to be there : and the brass can therefore be polished without the least hindrance. And not till that is done should the blower be applied.

Chapter IV. – Of the poker

1. A judicious use of the poker is essential to the well-being of an anthracite fire. This is the most delicate part of the science of coal burning, and the strictest attention should be given to it. So nice a matter is this, that I am almost ready to say, that I can form my opinion of a man’s intellect from his application of the poker as well as his pleading, preaching, or physicking.

2. An ignorant, meddlesome, or nervous person you will often see thrusting in the poker at all adventures, without rhyme or reason – as often marring as making the fire. In a cold winter day particularly, the poker should always be kept out of their reach. They are unworthy its honors.

3. The legitimate office of the poker, in the case of a hard coal fire, is to clear away the ashes which accumulate on the lower bars, and promote a free circulation of air. Not to quicken the blaze by breaking a large coal in pieces, or by changing the position of the pieces, as in fires of Liverpool.

4. A fire should be poked when at its zenith – if you wait till it is much below that, your poking will only poke it out ; the more you poke the less it will burn.

5. If the fire, from having been too long neglected, appear to be in a doubtful state, hesitating between life and death – never touch a poker to it, it will be the death of it – never stir it – scarce look or breathe upon it, but with the step of a ghost, clap on the blower, and if the vital spark be not wholly extinct, the air will find it out, and in a few moments blow it up to a generous heat – then gradually add fresh coal in small pieces, devoid of dust, and your fire is safe. – Servants never learn this mystery, they always fly to the poker in every case of distress, and by their stupid use of it, double their own labor and vex the mistress of the house.

6. This direction should be particularly observed in the morning, when a fire has been perpetuated. No coal should be added, nor the fire touched, till after the blower has been up and done its work. It will often be found, especially in the case of the Schuylkill  coal, far preferable to Lehigh – that this alone will furnish a sufficient heat for the breakfast hour ; which is a demonstration that it is no waste, but a clear saving, to perpetuate the fire in the manner laid down.

7. Many more niceties might be enumerated touching the poker ; but I refrain and willingly leave something to the imagination of the reader. I would conclude, as the preachers say, with only one practical remark – that you will never have a good anthracite fire, till you have broken your husband, a brother, or wife, of the mischievous habit of poking. It is surely an unseemly habit in itself, as well as an injurious one to the fire. It shows too a meddlesome, prying, insinuating disposition ; and I can never help thinking, when I see one of this sort poking the coals, that he only wants the opportunity to thrust himself into my private affairs.

Chapter V. – containing miscellanies

1. If the Savings Bank is a good thing in Wallstreet, it is a better thing in our own houses. If we save at home, we need not put our money there, we shall be rich enough without money at interest. We waste in nothing more than the use of hard coal. The cinders which I see every day lying in the streets, nay before my own door, would, if  gathered up, afford fuel to many a poor family ; yet I confess that I do not see how the evil is to be remedied. The cinders get so mingled with the ashes, that it is difficult to separate them, aad the servants will not do it. But till a way is discovered of saving them, a Schuylkill may be a clean and hot fire, but it will not be a cheap one. Of Liverpool coal you can burn every atom. 

2. The blower should questionless be the size of the whole grate ; but it should be used with discretion. 

3. As to the form of grates, I think on the whole, that the Lehigh grate with horizontal front bars, and rake ones for the bottom, possesses the greatest advantages. – There is the greatest objection to one of the common Liverpool construction, which is, that the floor of it, the bottom bars, are altogether too thickly set. The ashes cannot fall through, but collect upon them, deaden and finally extinguish the fire, while the coal is not half consumed. In order to keep the fire a-going at all, there must be a very frequent clearing away of the ashes with the poker. A practice to be deprecated, as it tends to generate the worst habits.

I had sketched the heads of a couple of chapters on the merits of anthracite in general, and on the relative excellences of Lehigh, Schuylkill, and Rhode Island, but I must defer them to some other time, and in the meanwhile I commend my readers to the kind care of a spirit-stirring Schuylkill grate. 

Chapter VI. – Of the three coals and their advantages over Liverpool.

1. As to the general merits of hard coal over Liverpool, or any other bituminous coal – and I place cleanliness at the very top of its virtues, – cleanliness as to smoke, dust, and smell. Were they at the same price, and of the same endurance, I should take without hesitation the hard coal, it is so infinitely cleaner. Burn Liverpool, and your clothes are smutted – your flesh begrimmed – your furniture dirty – your walls blackened and wherever there happens to be a crack, seamed with long tapering streaks of soot – your carpet soiled, and when taken up, if there are cracks in your floor, are found indelibly stained with corresponding lines of smut, to such a degree that you are defeated in your economical purpose of wearing them next year the wrong side up. I say nothing of the filthy smut that deposits itself on your books and papers – of the unnumbered cobwebs brought to light by the smoke and dust gathering on them, which might else have hung undiscerned for months or years – of those globules of pure greasy black in the shape of polly-wogs that go sailing round the room, and light on your shirt collar or cheek, where they are unwittingly rubbed in, while you, like Malvolio, cross-gartered, parade yourself in the streets, and wonder to see everyone smile as he passes. And then the stench of this vile coal, when a strong northwester, or whatever the wind is that nauseates the throat of your chimney, blows the smoke in Stygian puffs into your parlour and face – boh ! suicide might be traced to it.

But burn anthracite, and the whole scene is changed. White-wash your parlours in the spring or autumn, and the white is just as fresh and pure at the end of a long winter as at first. After three months fire in my parlour, I have been unable to perceive the slightest dinginess in the walls, ceiling, or cornice. – A matter of the greatest consequence in those houses where the cornice has its oak leaves, rosettes, dentals, and nobody knows what more, of architectural ginger-bread work. For, by frequent white-washings, though done with ever so much care, and which with the nicest Paris white, the fine sharp edges, graceful curves, and delicate cavities on which the beauty of the cornice wholly depends, are lost, being cased over or filled up by the muddy brush of the black white-washer. The dust, too, which hard coal makes, though light and fine, is clean and pure, and easily dislodged from the mantel-piece and furniture, without leaving the least trace of its presence. Its visibility, wherever it does light, serves also to keep the lady of the house on the alert, and the dusting-cloth in more frequent action. As to smell, it has infinitely the preference over the bituminous coals. It savours of sulfur to be sure, and the associations are by no means agreeable : but so do the Congress waters smell of sulfur, and taste too, yet we travel 500 or 1000 miles to enjoy it. But the smell, however, cannot be denied to be a pure, wholesome, medical one, though perhaps now and then a little too strong, especially from the Schuylkill. The Rhode Island is remarkable for being wholly innocent of the fumes that proceed both from Lehigh and Schuylkill. A great merit surely.

1. As to durability. All kinds of hard coal stand the heat remarkably well. But I confess they do not stand it so well as I could wish. They do burn out. The best will consume away after a while. The truth is, that though a fire of Anthracite will, to be sure, last longer than one of Liverpool, yet a chaldron of anthracite will not last a whit longer than a chaldron of Liverpool. And the reason is, that while a pack of Liverpool makes as good a fire as is ordinarily wanted in the coldest weather, it takes a bushel of Anthracite. If a hard coal fire therefore lasts longer, it ought to, in all conscience, for it is four times as big. I state the case in round terms, but I am persuaded that they represent the truth very nearly : yet, if there is no great cheapness, there is great comfort in a hard coal fire, in its steadiness, constancy, and trust-worthiness. Like a man of integrity and consistency, you always know where to find it. It plays you no tricks, but maintains the same sober, equal demeanour. When you go out, if you just cast a look at the grate, provided you have studied the subject properly, you know just how long you can be gone and find a good fire when you return. You can tell with great exactness whether it will stand 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 hours longer. But a Liverpool fire deceives you perpetually. You left perhaps a good fire and ample coal on, to last till you should get back ; but when you enter your parlour, shivering with cold, all is black – the fire has either gone out, leaving the half-burnt coal all bridged over the grate  ; or, having found a vent through the superincumbent mass, the draught thus created has whistled it all away, in a matter altogether rapid, costly and provoking. 

2. As to the Heat. – With a right furious draught, in a grate  properly constructed, I believe that the hard coal in an equal quantity would yield a fiercer heat than Liverpool. But in a sluggish grate, where the hard coal burns slowly, it is with much ado that a small room can be kept warm with it, while Liverpool frequently renewed and judiciously poked, would drive you out of it. Take an equal weight of each and subject each to the highest draught, and I have no doubt that the anthracite would yield vastly more heat – more intense and for a longer period than Liverpool. It is said that the Rhode Island makes a hotter fire than either of the others, and from a short trial I am inclined to believe that it is true. It certainly makes more flame – much more – as the trial of it at M’Queen’s furnace proved, and as my own experience has proved also. A fire of Rhode Island is, too, more beautiful than one of Lehigh or Schuylkill. The flame is indeed exceedingly beautiful. You’ll see all sorts of colours issuing from the top of the fire and blending together ; rose pink, purple, violet, red and blue, now separate and distinct, and now weaving together. What it is that occasions this I know not. It may be the same mysterious cause that produces in Newport and the neighborhood of the mines the most beautiful women. Everyone knows that a Newport lady and beauty are almost convertible terms. It is a singular coincidence too, and well worth noticing, that, as the external of Rhode Island coal is exceedingly unprepossessing while the flame is so beautiful, so nothing can be more dismal than the outward aspect of Newport, though so much beauty lies hidden beneath. Philosophers might perhaps speculate profitably on these analogies.

3. But I begin to prose. Old age, however, must be allowed its privileges.

Chapter VII. – the hard coals briefly contrasted.

             I do not intend saying much on this part of my subject, because of Rhode Island I know but little, and there is not after all, perhaps much to be said. Besides, it will be construed into a piece of sheer prejudice and ill-nature by the wives of stockholders, if I should exalt one coal to the injury of that in which their husbands hold stock. To avoid an evil like this I shall say but a word, and leave the subject. I am afraid, however, that I shall certainly bring the wrath of many down upon my head by what little I do say – for in one word I do think the Schuylkill is the best of the three, and for this reason, that it burns the easiest. Who says it does not, I freely say does not know whereof he affirms, or he is prejudiced, while I aver that I am free of all prejudice.

The Lehigh, under similar circumstances of draught, will grow dull and go out, while the Schuylkill would have burned freely.

The Schuylkill burns itself up much more perfectly than Lehigh, which will oftentimes go out, leaving the grate half full of half burnt coal.

 In perpetuating the fire, the pre-eminence of Schuylkill is particularly observable, it keeps fire through the night much better than Lehigh.

In breaking, Schuylkill breaks hard, Lehigh harder, Rhode Island least hard. Comparing them with strict grammatical precision, Rhode Island is hard, Schuylkill harder, Lehigh hardest, both to break and burn.

As to price, Schuylkill and Lehigh are cheap, comparative wanting, Rhode Island cheapest.

In respect of beauty of fracture, that of Lehigh is clean and smooth, that of Schuylkill exceedingly brilliant, of Rhode Island hideously ugly.

As to combustion, that of Rhode Island is the most complete and the residue the least. 

In regard to ashes and dirt, they are about alike: Lehigh ashes being whitest, Schuylkill darker, and Rhode Island darker still. Lehigh perhaps makes the least ashes, though it leaves the most of a hard incombustible cinder. And Rhode Island perhaps makes the most ashes, while as far as I have discerned, it leaves nothing unburnt.

Many other slight comparisons suggest themselves, but they would be even less to the purpose than those I have already indulged in.

It has been hardly fair, perhaps, to our neighbour of Rhode Island to bring her into the lists, as we have not probably had a fair specimen of it yet in the market. What we have had, it is well known was water-soaked, by no means in a fit state for the grate. But there is every reason to believe that when the mines have been somewhat further open, and the coal has been properly exposed in the drying house, it will burn with even more facility than the Schuylkill. From the assurances of one who has burned it in this perfectly dry state, it cannot be doubted ; and on his assurances, one of the above comparisons is grounded. If, therefore, it shall ther next year be offered at six or seven dollars the chaldron, we may at length be in possession of a cheap as well as good fuel.

I tear myself, Messrs. Editors, reluctantly from this dark but delightful theme. If I thought you would print more I would write more, but your patience must be exhausted.

I will only say, in conclusion, that could I utter myself in the language of our first poet, now happily a citizen of our city, I should think it no profanation of my powers to employ them in singing the beauties of the many coloured Schuylkill.                                                An Amateur

Section Ten: Miscellaneous

Editor’s Note: Roberts took some of the following “Miscellaneous Observations” from The Cook’s Oracle, others he may have collected over time and the sources are unknown.    

MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS,

COMPILED FOR THE USE OF HOUSE SERVANTS.

Many well-meaning servants are ignorant of the best means of managing, and thereby waste as much as would maintain a small family, besides causing the mistress of the house much chagrin by their irregularity : and many families, from a want of method, have the appearance of chance rather than a regular system. To avoid this, the following hints may be useful as well as economical : –

Every article should be kept in that place best suited to it, as much waste may thereby be avoided, viz.

Vegetables will keep best on a stone floor, if the air be excluded. – Meat in a cold dry place. – Sugar and sweetmeats require a dry place ; so does salt. – Candles cold, but not damp. – Dried meats, hams, &c. the same. – All sorts of seeds for puddings, saloop, rice, &c. should be close covered, to preserve from insects ; but that will not prevent it, if long kept.

Bread is so heavy an article of expense, that all waste should be guarded against ; and having it cut in the room will tend much to prevent it. It should not be cut until a day old. Earthen pans and covers keep it best.

Straw, to lay apples on, should be quite dry, to prevent a musty taste.

Large pears should be tied up by the stock.

Basil, savoury, or knotted marjoram, or thyme, to be used when herbs are ordered ; but with discretion as they are very pungent.

The best means to preserve blankets from moths is to fold and lay them under the feather-beds that are in use ; and they should be shaken occasionally. When soiled, they should be washed, not scoured.

Soda, by softening the water, saves a great deal of soap. It should be melted in a large jug of water, some of which pour into the tubs and boiler ; and when the latter becomes weak, add more. The new improvement in soft soap is, if properly used, a saving of near half in quantity ; and though sometimes dearer than the hard, reduces the price of washing considerably.

Many good laundresses advise soaping linen in warm water the night previous to washing, as facilitating the operation with less friction.

Soap should be cut with a wire or twine, in pieces that will make a long square when first brought in, and kept out of the air two or three weeks ; for if it dry quick, it will crack, and when wet, break. Put it on a shelf, leaving a space between, and let it grow hard gradually. Thus it will save a full third in the consumption.

Some of the lemons and oranges used for juice should be pared first, to preserve the peel dr ; some should be halved, and when squeezed, the pulp cut out, and the outsides dried for grating. If for boiling in any liquid, the first way is best. When these fruits are cheap, a proper quantity should be bought and prepared as above directed, especially by those who live in the country, where they cannot always be had ; and they are perpetually wanted in cookery.

When whites of eggs are used for jelly, or other purposes, contrive to have pudding, custard, &c. to employ the yolks also. Should you not want them for several hours, heat them up with a little water, and put them in a cool place, or they will be hardened and useless. It was a mistake of old, to think that the whites made cakes and puddings heavy ; on the contrary, if beaten long and separately, they contribute greatly to give lightness, are an advantage to paste, and make a pretty dish, beaten with fruit, to set and cream, &c.

If copper utensils be used in the kitchen, the cook should be charged to be very careful not to let the tin be rubbed off, and to have them fresh done when the least defect appears, and never to put by any soup, gravy, &c. in them, or any metal utensils ; stone and earthen vessels should be provided for those purposes, as likewise plenty of common dishes, that the table-set may not be used to put by cold meat.

Tin vessels, if kept damp, soon rust, which causes holes. Fenders, and tin linings of flower pots, &c. should be painted every year or two.

Vegetables soon sour, and corrode metals and glazed red ware, by which a strong poison is produced. Some years ago, the death of several gentlemen was occasioned at Salt hill, (London) by the cook sending a ragout to the table, which she had kept from the preceding day in a copper vessel badly tinned.

Vinegar, by its acidity, does the same, the glazing being of lead or arsenic.

Cool liquors in hot weather, dip a cloth in cold water, and wrap it round the bottle two or three times, then place it in the sun: renew the process once or twice.

The best way of scalding fruits, or boiling vinegar, is in a stone jar on a hot iron hearth ; or by putting the vessel into a saucepan of water, called a water-bath.

If chocolate, coffee, jelly, gruel, bark, &c. be suffered to boil over, the strength is lost.

The cook should be charged to take care of jelly-bags, tapes for the collared things, &c. which, if not perfectly scalded, and kept dry, give an unpleasant flavour when next used.

Cold water thrown on cast-iron, when hot, will cause it to crack.

A cook must be quick and strong of sight ; her hearing most acute, that she may be sensible when the contents of her vessels bubble, although they be closely covered, and that she may be alarmed before the pot boils over ; her auditory nerve ought to discriminate (when several saucepans are in operation at the same time) the simmering of one, the ebullition of another, and the full-toned warbling of a third.

It is imperiously requisite that her organ of smell be highly susceptible of the various effluvia, that her nose may distinguish the perfection of aromatic ingredients, and that in animal substances it shall evince a suspicious accuracy between tenderness and putrefaction ; above all, her olfactories should be troublingly alive to mustiness and empyreuma.

It is from the exquisite sensibility of her palate, that we admire and judge of the cook ; from the alliance between the olfactory and sapid organs it will be seen, that their perfection is indispensable.

Good manners have often made the fortune of many, who have had nothing else to recommend them: ill manners have as often marred the hopes of those who have had every thing else to advance them.

Dinner tables are seldom sufficiently lighted, or attended ; an active waiter will have enough to do, to attend upon half a dozen good eaters ; there should be half as many candles as there are guests, and their flame be about eighteen inches above the table, our foolish modern candelabras seem intended to illuminate the ceiling, rather than to give light on the plates, &c.

I am persuaded that no servant ever saved his master sixpence, but he found it in the end in his own pocket.

A surgeon may as well attempt to make an incision with a pair of sheers, or open a vein with an oyster knife, as a cook pretend to dress a dinner without proper tools.

When the pot is coming to a boil, there will always, from the cleanest meat and clearest water, rise a scum to the top of it ; proceeding partly from the foulness of the meat, and partly from the water, this must be carefully taken off as soon as it rises ; on this, depends a good appearance of all boiled things. When you have scummed well, put in some cold water, which will throw up the rest of the scum. The oftener it is scummed, and the cleaner the top of the water is kept, the cleaner will be the meat. If let alone, it soon boils down and sticks to the meat ; which, instead of looking delicately white and nice, will have that coarse and filthy appearance we have too often to complain of, and the butcher and poulterer to be blamed for the carelessness of the cook in not scumming her pot.

In small families we recommend block tin saucepans, &c. as lightest, and safest ; if proper care is taken of them, and they are well dried after they are clean, they are by far the cheapest ; the purchase of a new tin saucepan being little more than the expense of tinning a copper one.

 Let the young cook never forget, that cleanliness is the chief cardinal virtue of the kitchen  ; the first preparation for roasting is to take care that the spit be properly cleaned with sand and water, nothing else. When it has been well scoured with this, dry it with a clean cloth. If spits are wiped clean, as soon as the meat is drawn from them, and while they are hot, a very little cleaning will be required. The less the spit is passed through the meat the better, and before you spit it, joint it properly, especially necks and loins, that the carver may separate them easily and neatly, and take especial care it be evenly balanced on the spit, that its motion may be regular, and the fire operate equally on each part of it.

A cook must be as particular to proportion her fire to the business she has to do, as a chemist ; the degree of heat most desirable for dressing the different sorts of food ought to be attended to with the utmost precision.

A good cook is as anxiously attentive to the appearance and colour of her roasts, as a court beauty is to her complexion at a birth-day ball.

Be very particular in frying, never to use any oil, butter, lard, or drippings, but what is quite clean, fresh, and free from salt. Any thing dirty spoils the look, any thing bad tasted or stale spoils the flavor, and salt prevents its browning.

There is nothing in which the difference between an elegant and an ordinary table is more seen than in the dressing of vegetables, more especially of greens ; they may be equally as fine at first, at one place as at another ; but their look and taste are afterwards very different, entirely from the careless way in which they have been cooked.

Unripe vegetables are as insipid and unwholesome as unripe fruits.

If you wish to have vegetables delicately clean, put on your pot, make it boil, put a little salt in it, and skim it perfectly clean before you put in the greens, &c. which should not be put in til the water boils briskly ; the quicker they boil, the greener they will be ; when the vegetables sink, they are generally done enough, if the water has been constantly boiling. Take them up immediately, or they will lose their colour and goodness. Drain the water from them thoroughly before you send them to table. This branch of cookery requires the most vigilant attention.

If vegetables are a minute or two too long over the fire, they lose all their beauty and flavour.

Made dishes are nothing more than meat, poultry, or fish, stewed very gently till they are tender, with a thickened sauce poured over them.

Be careful to trim off all the skin, gristle, &c. that will not be eaten, and shape handsomely and of even thickness, the various articles which compose your made dishes ; this is sadly neglected by common cooks ; only stew them till they are just tender, and not do them to rags. Therefore, what you prepare the day before it is to be eaten, do not do quite enough the first day.

Woollen blankets or woollen clothes of any kind as well as furs, may be preserved from moths by sprinkling a little spirits of turpentine upon them in the drawers or boxes where they are deposited during summer. The scent of the turpentine, on the woollens or furs, is immediately removed on their exposure to the air. Sheets of paper moistened with spirits of turpentine above or below the clothes, furs, &c. will have the effect of keeping off moths, but not so effectually as sprinkling.

When you open a bottle of catsup, essence of anchovy, &c. throw away the old cork, and stop it closely with a new cork that will fit it very tight. Use only the best superfine velvet taper corks.

Economy in corks is very unwise ; in order to save a mere trifle, in the price of the cork, you run the risk of losing the valuable article it is intended to preserve. It is a vulgar error that a bottle must be well stopped, when the cork is forced down even with the mouth of it ; this is a sure sign that the cork is too small, and it should be redrawn and a larger one put in.

The papering of a room, when soiled in spots as often happens, may be cleaned by a piece of brick loaf or biscuit, one or two days old. After gently rubbing till the bread is soiled, the soiled part of the bread should be chipped off, or a fresh piece taken ; some caution is requisite not to injure the fabric of the paper-hanging, or the figures on it.

Finis.

House Servants Directory | Index | Intro | Section One | Section Two and Three | Section Four and Five | Section Six | Section Seven and Eight | Section Nine and Ten | Glossary