The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887), Hugo Ziemann [world of reading .TXT] 📗

Gum of great strength, which will also keep for a long time, is prepared by dissolving equal parts of gum arabic and gum tragacanth in vinegar. A little vinegar added to ordinary gum water will make it keep much better.

FAMILY GLUE.

Crack the glue and put it in a bottle, add common whisky; shake up, cork tight, and in three or four days it can be used. It requires no heating, will keep for almost any length of time, and is at all times, ready to use, except in the coldest of weather, when it will require warming. It must be kept tight, so that the whisky will not evaporate. The usual corks or stoppers should not be used. It will become clogged. A tin stopper covering the bottle, but fitting as closely as possible, must be used.

GLUE.

Glue to resist heat and moisture is made as follows: Mix a handful of quick-lime in four ounces of linseed oil, boil to a good thickness, then spread it on tin plates in the shade, and it will become very hard, but may be easily dissolved over the fire as glue.

A glue which will resist the action of water is made by boiling one pound of common glue in two quarts of skimmed milk.

FURNITURE CREAM.

Shred finely two ounces of beeswax and half an ounce of white wax into half a pint of turpentine; set in a warm place until dissolved, then pour over the mixture the following, boiled together until melted: Half a pint of water, an ounce of castile soap and a piece or resin the size of a small nutmeg. Mix thoroughly and keep in a wide-necked stone bottle for use. This cleans well and leaves a good polish, and may be made at a fourth of the price it is sold at.

CEMENT CRACKS IN FLOOR.

Cracks in floors may be neatly but permanently filled by thoroughly soaking newspapers in paste made of half a pound of flour, three quarts of water and half a pound of alum mixed and boiled. The mixture will be about as thick as putty, and may be forced into the crevice with a case knife. It will harden like papier-mache.

A POLISH FOR LADIES' KID SHOES.

A fine liquid polish for ladies' kid shoes, satchels, etc., that is easy of application, recommended as containing no ingredients in any manner injurious to leather, is found by digesting in a closed vessel at gentle heat, and straining, a solution made as follows: Lampblack one drachm, oil turpentine four drachms, alcohol (trymethyl) twelve ounces, shellac one and one-half ounces, white turpentine five drachms, saudarac two drachms.

PASTE FOR SCRAP BOOKS, ETC.

Paste that Will Keep.—Dissolve a teaspoonful of alum in a quart of water. When cold, stir in flour, to give it the consistency of thick cream, being particular to beat up all the lumps. Stir in as much powdered resin as will lie on a dime, and throw in half a dozen cloves to give it a pleasant odor. Have on the fire a teacupful of boiling water; pour the flour mixture into it, stirring well all the time. In a few minutes it will be of the consistency of molasses. Pour it into an earthen or china vessel, let it cool, and stir in a small teaspoonful each of oil of cloves and of sassafras; lay a cover on, and put in a cool place. When needed for use, take out a portion and soften it with warm water. This is a fine paste to use to stiffen embroidery.

TO REMOVE INDELIBLE INK.

Most indelible inks contain nitrate of silver, the stain of which may be removed by first soaking in a solution of common salt, and afterward washing with ammonia. Or use solution of ten grains of cyanide of potassium and five grains of iodine to one ounce of water, or a solution of eight parts each bichloride of mercury and chloride of ammonium in one hundred and twenty-five parts of water.

A CEMENT FOR ACIDS.

A cement which is proof against boiling acids may be made by a composition of India rubber, tallow, lime and red lead. The India rubber must first be melted by a gentle heat, and then six to eight per cent by weight of tallow is added to the mixture while it is kept well stirred; next day slaked lime is applied, until the fluid mass assumes a consistency similar to that of soft paste; lastly, twenty per cent of red lead is added in order to make it harden and dry.

TO KEEP CIDER.

Allow three-fourths of a pound of sugar to the gallon, the whites of six eggs, well beaten, a handful of common salt. Leave it open until fermentation ceases, then bung up. This process a dealer of cider has used for years, and always successfully.

Another Recipe.—To keep cider sweet allow it to work until it has reached the state most desirable to the taste, and then add one and a half tumblers of grated horse-radish to each barrel, and shake up well. This arrests further fermentation. After remaining a few weeks, rack off and bung up closely in clean casks.

A gentleman of Denver writes he has a sure preservative: Put eight gallons of cider at a time into a clean barrel; take one ounce of powdered charcoal and one ounce of powdered sulphur; mix and put it into some iron vessel that will go down through the bung-hole of the barrel. Now put a piece of red-hot iron into the charcoal and sulphur, and while it is burning, lower it through the bung-hole to within one foot of the cider, and suspend it there by a piece of wire. Bring it up and in twelve hours you can cure another batch. Put the cider in a tight barrel and keep in a cool cellar and it will keep for years.

A Holland Recipe.—To one quart of new milk, fresh from the cow (not strained), add one half pound of ground black mustard seed and six eggs. Beat the whole well together and pour into a barrel of cider. It will keep cider sweet for one year or more.

TO BLEACH COTTON CLOTH.

Take one large spoonful of sal soda and one pound of chloride lime for thirty yards; dissolve in clean, soft water; rinse the cloth thoroughly in cold, soft water so that it may not rot. This amount of cloth may be bleached in fourteen or fifteen minutes.

A POLISH FOR LEATHER.

Put a half-pound of shellac broken up in small pieces into a quart bottle or jug, cover it with alcohol, cork it tight, and put it on the shelf in a warm place; shake it well several times a day, then add a piece of camphor as large as a hen's egg; shake it well, and in a few hours shake it again and add one ounce of lampblack. If the alcohol is good, it will all be dissolved in two days; then shake and use. If the materials were of the proper kind, the polish correctly prepared, it will dry in about five minutes, giving a gloss equal to patent leather. Using aniline dyes instead of the lampblack, you can have it any desired color, and it can be used on wood or hard paper.

TO SOFTEN WATER.

Add half a pound of the best quick-lime dissolved in water to every hundred gallons. Smaller proportions may be more conveniently managed, and if allowed to stand a short time the lime will have united with the carbonate of lime, and been deposited at the bottom of the receptacle. Another way is to put a gallon of lye into a barrelful of water, or two or three shovelfuls of wood-ashes, let stand over night; it will be clear and soft.

WASHING FLUID.

One gallon of water and four pounds of ordinary washing soda, and a quarter of a pound of soda. Heat the water to boiling hot, put in the soda, boil about five minutes, then pour it over two pounds of unslaked lime, let it bubble and foam until it settles, turn it off and bottle it for use. This is the article that is used in the Chinese laundries for whitening their linen, and is called "Javelle water;" a tablespoonful put into a suds of three gallons, and a little, say a quarter of a cupful, in the boiler when boiling the clothes, makes them very white and clear. Must be well rinsed afterwards. This preparation will remove tea stains and almost all ordinary stains of fruit, grass, etc. This fluid brightens the colors of colored clothes, does not rot them, but should not be left long in any water; the boiling, sudsing, rinsing and bluing, should be done in quick succession, until the clothes are ready to hang on the line.

HARD SOAP. (Washing.)

Six pounds of washing soda and three of unslaked lime. Pour on four gallons of boiling water, let it stand until perfectly clear, then drain off, and put in six pounds of clean fat. Boil it until it begins to harden, about two hours, stirring most of the time. While boiling, thin it with two gallons of cold water, which you have previously poured on the alkaline mixture, after draining off the four gallons. This must be settled clear before it is drawn off. Add it when there is danger of boiling over. Try the thickness by cooling a little on a plate. Put in a handful of salt just before taking from the fire. Wet a tub to prevent sticking; turn in the soap and let it stand until solid. Cut into bars, put on a board and let it dry. This makes about forty pounds of soap. It can be flavored just as you turn it out.

SOAP FOR WASHING WITHOUT RUBBING.

A soap to clean clothes without rubbing: Take two pounds of sal soda, two pounds of