Buckeye cookery

cucumber pickles to green them, some use cabbage leaves, covering bottom, sides, and top of kettle. A medium spicing for a quart of pickles is a level tea-spoon of peppercorns (whole black . peppers), the same of allspice, a table-spoon of broken stick cinnamon, half a tea-spoon of cloves, mustard seed, or horse-radish chopped fine, and one piece of ginger root, an inch long. If ground cayenne pepper is used instead of whole peppers, an eighth of a tea-spoon is enough. A. better substitute for peppercorns is garden-peppers cut in rings, in proportion of two rings of green and one of red without seeds, or a level tea-spoon, when finely chopped, to a quart of pickles. These proportions may be increased or decreased to suit the taste, taking care not to put in so much of any one as to make its flavor predominate. Ginger is the most wholesome of the spices. Cloves are the strongest, mace next, then allspice and cinnamon, and, of course, less of the stronger should be used. Pickles are not famous for wholesome qualities, even when made with the greatest care, but if they must be eaten, it is best to make them at home. Those sold in market are often colored a beautiful green with sulphate of copper, which isa deadly poison, or are cooked in brass or copper vessels, which produces the same result in an indirect way. Scalding or parboiling articles to be pickled makes them absorb the vinegar more easily, but does not add to their crispness. Before putting them in vinegar, after parboiling, they should be cold and perfectly dry. Always use strong vinegar, or the pickles will be insipid, and it should be scalding hot when poured on, as raw vinegar becomes ropy and does not keep well. As heating weakens it, vinegar for pickles should be very strong, and should only be brought to boiling point, and immediately poured on pickles. Keep pickles from the air, and see that the vinegar is at least two inches over the top of pickles in the jar. A dry wooden spoon or ladle should be used in handling pickles, and is the only one that should touch pickles in the jars. If the vinegar loses its strength it should be replaced in good, poured over scalding hot. PICKLED ARTICHOKES. | Rub off outer skin with a coarse towel, and lay in salt water for | a day, drain and pour over them cold spiced vinegar, adding a teaspoonful of horse-radish to each jar. ; 256 PICKLES. BEAN PIcKLeEs. Pick green veans of the best variety, when young and tender, string, and place in a kettle to boil, with salt to taste, until they can be pierced with a fork, drain well through a colander, put in a stone jar, sprinkle with cayenne pepper, and cover with strong cider vinegar ; daa may be added if desired. BotTrLED PICKLES. Wash and wipe a half bushel of medium-sized cucumbers, suitabie for pickling, pack close in a stone jar, sprinkle over the top one pint of salt, pour over a sufficient quantity of boiling water to cover them, place a cloth over the jar, and let stand until cold (if prepared in the evening, let stand all night), drain off the water, and place the pickles on stove in cold vinegar, let them come to a boil, take out, place in a stone jar, and cover with either cold or hot vinegar. They will be ready for use in a few days, and are excellent. It is an improvement to add a few spices and a small quan- tity of sugar. To bottle them, prepare with salt and boiling water as above, drain (when cold), and place a gallon at a time on a stove in enough cold vinegar to cover level (need not be very strong), to which a lump of alum about the size of a small hickory-nut (too much is jujurious) has been added. Have on stove, in another kettle, a gallon of the very best cider vinegar, to which add half a pint of