FoodNetArchive

The hearthstone; or, Life at home

1883

Page 110 · 1 recipe record on this page

Presented as published in 1883. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Tea. — Never use a tin tea-pot if an earthen one is obtainable. An even teaspoonful of dry tea is the usual allowance for a person. Scald the tea-pot with a little boiling water and pour it off. Put in the tea, and pour on not over a cup of boiling water, letting it stand a minute or two for the leaves to swell. Then fill with the needed amount of water still boiling, this being about a small cupful to a person. Cover closely and let it stand five minutes. Ten will be required for English breakfast-tea, but never boil either, above all in a tin pot. Boiling liberates the tannic acid of the tea, which acts upon the tin, making a compound, bitter and metallic in taste, and unfit for human stomachs. Nutrient Enema. (From "Chambers' Manual of Diet.") — Take half a pint of beef-tea, thicken with one teaspoonful of tapioca. Reduce i ^ ounces of raw beef to a fine pulp, rub through a sieve IN THE sick-room; OR, SANITARY NURSING. 1 75 and mix with the whole twenty grains of acid pepsin and four grains of diastase, or a dessertspoonful of malt flour. Use not more than quarter of a pint at once. Beef tea alone may also be used. Egg Gruel. — Beat the yolk of one egg with a tablespoonful of sugar till creamy and light. Pour slowly on this, stirring all the time, one teacupful of bouiiig water. Beat the white of the egg to a stiff froth with one teaspoonful of powdered sugar, and a drop or two of any flavoring allowed, and put on the top. The yolk of the eg'g is more digestible for the slight cooking given by the boiling water. The white is much more digestible uncooked. A teaspoonful of ivineEgg Gruel may be added if ordered. THE PHYSICIAN IN THE HOME, ♦• Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words, — health, peace and competence. But health consists with temperance alone, And peace, O Virtue ! peace is all thine own." — Pope. H ETHER you live in town or in the country there are times when a physician cannot be had just when he is needed, and therefore some knowledge of medicine and the laws of health is indispensable. If you wish to keep yourself and your children in health you must not only be careful in eating and drinking, but in everything that has to do with the condition of your bodies. A supply of simple remedies for ordinary ailments should always be at hand. You may destroy the strongest constitution and poison the healthiest blood by disobey- ing the laws of health, and you may wonderfully strengthen and improve your own health and that of your children by a careful and constant attention to those laws. I say " constant " attention, because so many people take care of their bodies by " fits and starts," and begin all sorts of regulations which they break within a week or two. A tonic is recommended to them, and the dose to be taken as well as the precise time to take it is prescribed, but after the first dose or two one hears the cry, "O, I have forgotten my medicine ; I wonder had I better take it now ! " If it should be taken before meals such persons take it after ; if it should be taken after meals they take it before. If a teaspoonful is the dose they take a tablespoonful, or, more frequently, to save the trouble of a spoon, they take " a swallow," the size of which will de- pend upon their liking or disliking the taste of it.