The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened, Sir Kenelm Digby [books to read in a lifetime .txt] 📗

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Take six gallons of new milk: put to it two quarts of the evening Cream; then put to it good runnet for winter Cheese; let it stand, till it be even well, then sink it as long as you can get any whey out: then put it into your fat, and set it in the press, and let it stand half an hour: in this time turn it once. When you take it out of the Press, set on the fire two gallons of the same whey; then put your Cheese in a big bowl, break the Curd as small with your hands as you do your Cheese-cakes: when your whey is scalding hot, take off the scum: lay your strainer over the Curd, and put in your whey: take a slice, and stir up your Curd, that it may scald all alike: put in as much whey as will cover it well: if you find that cold, put it out, and put in more to it that is hot. Stir it as before: then cover it with a linnen and woollen cloth: then set some new whey on the fire, put in your Cheese-fat and suter and cloth. After three quarters of an hour, take up the Curd, and put it into the Cheese fat, as fast, as two can work it in: then put it into the hot cloth, and set it into the Press. Have a care to look to it, and after a while turn it, and so keep it in the press with turning, till the next day: then take it forth and Salt it.


THE CREAM-COURDS

Strain your Whey, and set it on the fire: make a clear and gentle fire under the kettle: as they rise, put in whey, so continuing, till they are ready to skim. Then take your skimmer, and put them on the bottom of a hair-sieve: so let them drain till they are cold. Then take them off, and put them into a bason, and beat them with three or four spoonfuls of Cream and Sugar.


SAVOURY TOSTED OR MELTED CHEESE

Cut pieces of quick, fat, rich, well tasted cheese, (as the best of Brye, Cheshire, &c. or sharp thick Cream-Cheese) into a dish of thick beaten melted Butter, that hath served for Sparages or the like, or pease, or other boiled Sallet, or ragout of meat, or gravy of Mutton: and, if you will, Chop some of the Asparages among it, or slices of Gambon of Bacon, or fresh-collops, or Onions, or Sibboulets, or Anchovis, and set all this to melt upon a Chafing-dish of Coals, and stir all well together, to Incorporate them; and when all is of an equal consistence, strew some gross White-Pepper on it, and eat it with tosts or crusts of White-bread. You may scorch it at the top with a hot Fire-Shovel.


TO FEED CHICKEN

First give them for two days paste made of Barley Meal and Milk with Clyster Sugar to scowre them. Then feed them with nothing but hashed Raisins of the Sun. The less drink they have, the better it is: for it washeth away their fat; but that little they have, let it be broken Beer; Milk were as good or better; but then you must be careful to have it always sweet in their trough, and no sowerness there to turn the Milk. They will be prodigiously fat in about twelve days: And you must kill them, when they are at their height: Else they will soon fall back, and grow fat no more.

Others make their Paste of Barley meal with Milk and a little course Sugar, and mingle with it a little (about an eight part) of powder of green Glass beaten exceeding small. Give this only for two days to cleanse their stomacks. Then feed them with paste of Barley-meal, made sometimes with Milk and Sugar, and sometimes with the fat skimmed off from the pot, giving them drink as above.

Others make a pretty stiff paste for them with Barley-meal (a little of the coursest bran sifted from it) and the fat scummed off from the boiling pot, be it of Beef (even salted) or Mutton, &c. Lay this before them for their food for four days. Then give them still the same, but mingled with a little powder of Glass for 4 or five days more. In which time they will be extremely fat and good. For their drink, give them the droppings of good Ale or good Beer. When you eat them, you will find some of the powder of glass in their stomacks, i.e. gizzards.


TO FEED POULTRY

My Lady Fanshaws way of feeding Capons, Pullets, Hens, Chickens or Turkies, is thus. Have Coops, wherein every fowl is a part, and not room to turn in, and means to cleanse daily the ordure behind them, and two troughs; for before that, one may be scalding and drying the day the other is used, and before every fowl one partition for meat, another for drink. All their Meat is this: Boil Barley in water, till it be tender, keep some so, and another parcel of it boil with Milk, and another with strong Ale. Let them be boiled as wheat that is creed. Use them different days for variety, to get the fowl appetite. Lay it in their trough, with some Brown-Sugar mingled with it. In the partition for Liquor, let them have water or strong Ale to drink. They will be very drunk and sleep; then eat again. Let a Candle stand all night over the Coop, and then they will eat much of the night. With this course they will be prodigiously fat in a fortnight. Be sure to keep them very sweet. This maketh the taste pure.


ANOTHER WAY OF FEEDING CHICKEN

Take Barley meal, and with droppings of small Ale, (or Ale it self) make it into a consistence of batter for Pan-cakes. Let this be all their food. Which put into the troughs before them, renewing it thrice a day, morning, noon and evening; making their troughs very clean every time, and keeping their Coops always very clean and sweet. This is to serve them for drink as well as meat, and no other drink be given them. Feed them thus six days; the seventh give them nothing in their troughs but powder of brick searced, which scowreth and cleanseth them much, and makes their flesh exceeding white. The next day fall to their former food for six days more, and the seventh again to powder of Brick. Then again to barley Meal and Ale. Thus they will be exceeding fat in fifteen days, and purely white and sweet.


TO FATTEN YOUNG CHICKENS IN A WONDERFULL DEGREE

Boil Rice in Milk till it be very tender and Pulpy, as when you make Milk Potage. It must be thick, almost so thick, that a spoon may stand an-end in it. Sweeten this very well with ordinary Sugar. Put this into their troughs where they feed, that they may be always eating of it. It must be made fresh every day. Their drink must be onely Milk, in another little trough by their meat-trough. Let a candle (fitly disposed) stand by them all night; for seeing their meat, they will eat all night long. You put the Chicken up, as soon as they can feed of themselves; which will be within a day or two after they are hatched, and in twelve days, or a fortnight, they will be prodigiously fat; but after they have come to their height, they will presently fall back. Therefore they must be eaten as soon as they are come to their height. Their Pen or Coop must be contrived so, that the Hen (who must be with them, to sit over them) may not go at liberty to eat away their meat, but be kept to her own diet, in a part of the Coop that she cannot get out of. But the Chicken must have liberty to go from her to other parts of the Coop, where they may eat their own meat, and come in again to the Hen, to be warmed by her, at their pleasure. You must be careful to keep their Coop very clean.


TO FEED CHICKEN

Fatten your Chicken the first week with Oatmeal scalded in Milk; the second with Rice and Sugar in Milk. In a fortnight they will be prodigiously fat. It is good to give them sometimes a little Gravel, or powder of Glass, to cleanse their maws, and give them appetite.

If you put a little bran with their meat, it will keep their maws clean, and give them appetite.


ANOTHER EXCELLENT WAY TO FATTEN CHICKEN

Boil white bread in Milk, as though you were to eat it; but make it thick of the bread, which is sliced into it in thin slices, not so thick as if it were to make a pudding; but so, that when the bread is eaten out, there may some liquid milk remain for the Chicken to drink; or that at first you may take up some liquid Milk in a spoon, if you industriously avoid the bread: sweeten very well this potage with good Kitchin Sugar of six pence a pound; so put it into the trough before them. Put there but a little at a time, (two or three spoonfuls) that you may not clog them, and feed them five times a day, between their wakening in the morning, and their roosting at night. Give them no other drink; the Milk that remaineth after they have eaten the bread, is sufficient; neither give them Gravel, or ought else. Keep their Coops very clean, as also their troughs, cleansing them very well every morning. To half a dozen very little Chickens, little bigger then black-birds, an ordinary porenger full every day may serve. And in eight days they will be prodigiously fat, one peny loaf, and less then two quarts of Milk and about half a pound of Sugar will serve little ones the whole time. Bigger Chickens will require more, and two or three days longer time. When any of them are at their height of fat, you must eat them; for if they live longer, they will fall back, and grow lean. Be sure to make their potage very sweet.


AN EXCELLENT WAY TO CRAM CHICKEN

Stone a pound of Raisins of the Sun, and beat them in a Mortar to Pulp; pour a quart of Milk upon them, and let them soak so all night. Next morning stir them well together, and put to them so much Crums of Grated stale white bread as to bring it to a soft paste, work all well together, and lay it in the trough before the Chicken (which must not be above six in a pen, and keep it very clean) and let a candle be by them all night. The delight of this meat will make them eat continually; and they will be so fat (when they are but of the bigness of a Black-bird) that they will not be able to stand, but lie down upon their bellies to eat.


TO FEED PARTRIDGES THAT YOU HAVE TAKEN WILDE

You must often change their food, giving them but of one kind at a time, that so their appetites may be fresh to the others, when they are weary of the present. Sometimes dry wheat; Sometimes wheat soaked two or three days in water, to make it soft and tender; Sometimes barley so used; Sometimes oats in like manner. Give them continually to lie by them; Some of the great green leaves of Cabbages, that grow at the bottom of the