Cassell's dictionary of cookery

Refrigerator, Food. — The ordinary food refrigerator is usually in the form of a chest which has a compartment for ice and one or more compartments for the food. Most of the older forms of refrigerators did not completely separate the ice from the food compartments, and many of them were merely chests with double sides, separated by some non-conducting substance, as charcoal, in which the ice as well as the articles to be kept cool were placed on shelves indiscriminately. In either case the moistui'e from the evaporating ice filled the whole apparatus, and caused the contents to begin decaying soon after their removal, and, indeed, prevented their being preserved long whila they were within it. In the presence of moisture, particularly when it contains the effluvia from various meats and articles of food, decomposition will go on even at a temperature considerably below the freezing point, and this cannot be secured by the presence of ice. In a dry atmosphere meats may even be preserved without ice. If a current of air is made to circulate in a chamber surrounding an ice-box, much of the moisture of the air will be condensed upon the box, and there will also be a constant collection of impurities contained in the air. To make such a refrigerator efficient, the air must be first dried by passing it through a vessel containing chloride of calcium or some substance which will rapidly absorb moisture. In either case the caloric absorbed by the ice to cool a continuous current causes it to melt rapidly. An efficient method is to place a tight ice-box within a tight meat-box, or surround the latter with an ice-chamber, the meats to be first cooled in the open air. Regent's Pudding. — Grate two ounces of the white meat of a cocoa-nut. Mix with this two ounces of finely-grated bread-crumbs, two ounces of flour, three ounces of finely-shred beef suet, a table-spoonful of picked and washed currants, a table-spoonful of chopped raisins, and a little sugar. jSIix these ingredients thoroughly, and beat them up with two eggs and half a quarter of a pint of milk. Pour the mixture into a buttered basin, put over it a piece of buttered writing-paper, and tie it in a cloth. Plunge it into boiling water, and let it boil quickly until done enough. Turn it out carefully, and before sending to table, pour over it a little custard-sauce pleasantly flavoured with vanilla. Time to boil, about three hours. Probable cost, lOd. Sufficient for three or four persons. Regent's Punch. — Take the very thin rinds of two lemons, two china oranges, and one bitter one. Pour over them half a pound of white sugar-candy which has been boiled to a thin syrup with water and allowed to cool. Let the rinds infuse for an hour. Pom- over them a pint of cold strong green tea, and add tho strained juice of the fruit, a glass of rum, r, glass of brandy, a glass of arrack, a glass of pine-apple syrup, two bottles of champagne, and one of seltzer water. Strain the punch through lawn till it is quite clear, bottle immediately, and put it into ice for an hour or two tiU wanted. Serve in a bowl or jug. If preferred, instead of using pine-apple syrup, a fresh pine-apple may be sliced into the punch. Regent's Sauce for Sweet Puddings.