Original White House Cookbook

Kub the sugar over the lemon until it has absorbed all the yellow part of the skin, then put the sugar into a punch bowl ; add the lemon juice (free from pips) and mix these two ingredients, well together. Pour over them the boiling water, stir well together, add the rum, brandy and nutmeg ; mix thoroughly and the punch will be ready to serve. It is very important in making good punch that all the ingredients are thoroughly incorporated ; and to insure success, the processes of mixing must be diligently attended to. (This is an old-style punch.) LEMONADE. Three lemons to a pint of water makes strong lemonade ; sweeten to your taste. STRAWBERRY WATER. Take one cupful of ripe hulled berries; crush with a wooden spoon, mixing with the mass a quarter of a pound of pulverized sugar and half a pint of cold water. Pour the mixture into a fine sieve, rub through and filter till clear; add the strained juice of one lemon and one and a half pints of cold water, mix thoroughly and set in ice chest till wanted. This 'makes a nice, cool drink on a warm day and easily to be made in strawberry season. STRAWBERRY AND RASPBERRY SYRUP. Mash the fresh fruit, express the juice and to each quart add three and a half pounds of granulated sugar. The juice, heated to 180° Fahrenheit, and strained or filtered previous to dissolving the sugar, will keep for an indefinite time, canned hot in glass jars. The juice of soft fruits is best when allowed to drop therefrom by its own weight ; lightly mash the fruit and then suspend in a cloth, allowing the juice to drop in a vessel beneath. Many housekeepers, after the bottles and jars are thoroughly washed and dried, smoke them with sulphur in this way : Take a piece of wire and bend it around a small piece of brimstone the size of a bean ; set the brimstone on fire, put it in the jar or bottle, bending the other end over the mouth of the vessel, and cover with a cork ; after the brimstone has burned away, fill the vessel with the syrup or preserves and cover tightly. There is no sulphurous taste left by the process. KOUMISS. Koumiss is prepared by dissolving four ounces of white sugar in one gallon of skimmed milk, and placing in bottles of the capacity of one quart ; add two ounces of bakers’ yeast, or a cake of compressed yeast to each bottle. Cork and tie securely, set in a warm place until fermentation is well under way, and lay the bottles on their sides in a cool cellar. In three days, fermentation will have progressed sufficiently to permit the koumiss to be in good condition. PINEAPPLE VINEGAR. Cover sliced pineapples with pure cider vinegar ; let them stand three or four days, then mash and strain through a cloth as long as it runs clear ; to every three quarts of juice add five pounds of sugar. Boil it altogether about ten minutes, skim carefully until nothing rises to the surface, take from the fire ; when cool, bottle it. Blackberries and raspberries, and, in fact, any kind of highly flavored fruit, is fine ; a tablespoonful in a glass of ice-cold water, to drink in warm weather. RASPBERRY VINEGAR. No. 1.