The home cook book

MILK PUNCH To a pint of new milk add two tablespoons of sugar. Stir and dissolve the sugar in a little of the milk as you add. Lastly, stir in two tablespoons of wine. MINT JULEP The original concoction from which this drink derives its name was first invented in the South. It was made of rum and brandy undiluted, excepting for a little fine ice. The receipt given here can be partaken of without serious results. Place one tablespoon each of red raspberry, lemon, orange juices and dry sherry in glasses filled with shaved ice. Arrange sprigs of mint in each one and serve with straws. The amount given is for small glasses and should be increased according to the size of glasses used. If the ice does not dilute this mixture quite sufficiently, water can be added. [See illustration, Plate XXIX.] PASSOVER WINE Remove from their stems a pound and a half of fine raisins. Bruise them with a masher, then chop them coarse, put in an earthen crock, add a small sliced lemon, and pour over three quarts of fresh water just boiling. Cover the crock in a cool place. Next day take a silver spoon and stir all together thoroughly. Cover. Repeat the stirring next morning and for two following mornings. Then strain through a thick bag and bottle or use. ROOT BEER Root beer is a wholesome drink, as our American forefathers realized when in the springtime they took their chil- dren into the woods and taught them how to choose roots and herbs for it. In those days that was one of the "object-lessons" in Nature. What did they choose in those fields and skirting forests? Dandelion and burdock and yellow dock roots, the bark of the wild cherry also, and birch bark. They had hanging in the garret a bag of hops of the last year's picking from the wild vine that ran over tree and fence. Then out in the fields again they found sarsaparilla and elecampane and spikenard. In making the beer wash the roots very clean. Then bruise them so that their peculiar virtue or quality will readily yield itself. Take an ounce of each ingredient to two gallons of water. Be sure the big kettle you boil in is perfectly scoured and clean. Put in the cold water and your roots, etc., set over the fire and bring slowly to boil. Simmer for about half an hour, adding toward the end and to the proportion cited above a pound of sugar and twenty to twentyfive drops of the oil of sassafras or spruce. Put slowly into an earthen crock and cool to lukewarm. Then add the yeast, which to the above proportion is eight tablespoons of liquid yeast, or a dry yeast cake dissolved in a cup of tepid water. Stir in the yeast, cover and set away to ferment. In from three to six hours it will be drinkable. It may be kept in the jar for immediate drinking, or it may be bottled and the working delayed. ROYAL SHRUB For one glass use three tablespoons of strained red currant juice, two tablespoons of pineapple- juice, produced by cooking the fruit in sugar and water. Fill with seltzer water. Add one tablespoon of sugar and put a tablespoon of whipped cream on top. The fruit juices and seltzer must be ice cold, otherwise a tablespoon of shaved ice must be placed in each glass. [See illustration, Plate XXX.]