and so continue until the dish is filled. Set it into oven to brown.

your

AN EXCELLENT COLD STEW. Take a nice fresh white cabbage, wash and drain it, and cut off the stalk. Shave down the head evenly and nicely into very small shreds, with a cabbage-cutter or knife. Put it into a deep dish, and prepare for it the following dressing: Take a gill or half a tumbler of the best vinegar, mix with it a quarter of a pound of butter divided into four bits and rolled in flour, a small salt-spoon of salt, and the same quantity of cayenne pepper. Stir this together and boil it in a saucepan. Have ready beaten the yolks of three eggs. As soon as the mixture boils, take it from the fire and stir in the eggs. Then pour it boiling hot over the shred cabbage, and mix it well with a spoon. Set it to cool on ice or snow, or in the open air. It must be thoroughly cold before it is served. POTATOES, à la Maître d'Hotel. A good breakfast dish. Boil the potatoes, and when cold cut them into rather thin slices. Put a lump of fresh butter into a stewpan, adding a little flour, about a tea-spoonful for a middling-sized dish; when the flour has thickened with the butter, add by degrees a cup of broth or water. Boil this up and put in the potatoes with chopped parsley, pepper, and salt. Stew them a few minutes, remove them from the fire, and when quite off the boil, add the yolk of an egg beaten up with a little lemon juice and a table-spoonful of cold water. As soon as the sauce has set, the potatoes may be dished and sent to table. A London recipe, and very delicious.

A SUBSTITUTE FOR ASPARAGUS. The young stalks of the milkweed, which grows by the roadside, if cut when about as high as asparagus would be, and boiled like it, and served with toast, in the same manner, makes a delicious substitute for asparagus. It is exceedingly delicate, and tastes like string beans. The plant will shoot up like asparagus after being cut.

CONDIMENTS, OR SEASONING AGENTS.

The name of condiment is usually given to those substances which are taken with foods for the immediate purpose of improving their flavor. But most of them serve other and much more important purposes in the animal economy than that of gratifying the palate. Most of them are, in fact, alimentary substances; as salt, sugar, oil or fat, and vegetable acids.

But all the substances used as condiments are not necessary to our existence. This is the case with the aromatic and pungent condiments. The purpose which these substances serve in the animal economy is not very obvious; they probably act as stimulants, and, in some cases, they may answer to correct the injurious qualities of the food with which they are eaten.

In

SALINE CONDIMENTS. Common salt is considered by most persons as a mere luxury, as if its use were merely to gratify the taste; although it is essential to health and life, and is as much an aliment or food as either bread or flesh. It is a constituent of most of our food and drinks, and nature has kindly furnished us with an appetite for it. In many cases of disordered stomach, a tea-spoonful of salt is a certain cure. the violent, internal pain, termed colic, a tea-spoonful of salt, dissolved in a pint of cold water, taken as soon as possible, with a short nap immediately after, is one of the most effectual and speedy remedies known. The same will relieve a person who seems almost dead from receiving a heavy fall. In an apoplectic fit, no time should be lost in pouring down salt water, if sufficient sensibility remains to allow of swallowing; if not, the head must be sponged with cold water until the sense returns, when the salt will restore the patient from lethargy. In cases of severe bleeding at the lungs, and when other remedies have failed, Dr.

Rush, of Philadelphia, found that two tea-spoonfuls of salt completely stayed the blood.

ACIDULOUS CONDIMENTS. Vinegar, either by accident or design, has been employed by mankind in all ages, in greater or less quantity, as an aliment, or rather substances naturally containing it in small quantities have been employed as food, or it has been artificially formed, to be used and eaten. It is necessary, in one or other form, for the preservation of health. The prolonged absence from juicy vegetables or fruits, or their preserved juices, is a cause of scurvy. Vinegar is used as a condiment on account of its agreeable flavor and refreshing odor. It is employed alone or with pickles. When taken in small quantities, it is wholesome; but, of course, if immoderately used, it will cause trouble. Citric acid is employed, as a substitute for lemon and lime juice, in the preparation of cooling and refreshing beverages. Tartaric acid is employed as a cheap substitute for citric acid or lemon juice. Besides being cheaper, it has another advantage over citric acid; it is not deliquescent (or does not contract moisture) when exposed to the air. Cream of tartar is used in making cooling drinks. There are other acids, contained in fruits and vegetables, which are constantly employed and necessarily eaten by all.

OILY CONDIMENTS are oils derived from the seeds of fruit called vegetable oils. They are used raw, as in almonds, walnuts, flaxseed, cocoa-nuts, and nutmeg, and other fruits. They are also pressed, as olive oil or sweet oil, oil of almonds, and many volatile, or essential oils. The sweet or savory herbs, such as mint, marjoram, sage. &c., owe their peculiar flavor and odor to volatile oil contained in the leaves. In fact, all fruits and leaves, and some vegetables, as onions, garlic, with the spices, owe their grateful odor and taste to volatile oil. These oils, prepared, sold, and dissolved in spirit of wine, form the essences for flavoring, &c.

SACCHARINE CONDIMENTS. Sugar is usually regarded

as a nutritious substance, but Liebig declares it is merely an element of respiration. Many insects feed on sugar or saccharine liquids. It is said that during the sugar season, at the West India islands, every negro and every animal, even the dogs, grow fat. The fondness of children for sugar seems a natural instinct, since nature, by placing it in their milk, intended it to form a part of their nourishment. It is said that the eating of sugar spoils the color of, and corrupts, the teeth. This is a mistake. It is not the sweet itself, but the sweet, allowed to remain about the teeth, and becoming acid, which produces the trouble. Sugar is extensively used to prevent the decomposition of fruits, roots, and even stems and leaves, as in preserves. In these cases, sugar acts by excluding air, or by absorbing moisture, or both together. Its efficacy is sometimes of another kind, as when it assists in making jellies solid. Latterly, sugar has been employed to preserve meat and fish, instead of salt.

AROMATIC AND PUNGENT CONDIMENTS I have spoken . of in the volatile and essential oils.

For eating or cooking, ALMONDS should be blanched, on account of the injurious qualities of the husk.

BITTER ALMONDS are more or less poisonous to all animals. Dogs, pigeons, &c., are readily destroyed by eating these nuts. When eaten in large quantities, bitter almonds have caused fatal consequences. The oil of bitter almonds is a very powerful poison, being four times as powerful as prussic acid. A single drop will kill a cat in a few minutes. From this fact it is highly improper for ignorant persons to employ it, yet it is extensively used by cooks and confectioners for flavoring.

When rancid

BUTTER is employed as a condiment. by keeping, or when melted by heat, it is injurious to the dyspeptic.

It should be generally known, that a small quantity of VINEGAR will generally destroy immediately any

insect that may find its way into the stomach, and a little SALAD OIL will kill any insect that may enter the

ear.

MUSTARD. Mix the best flour of mustard with boiling water, to a proper thickness, rubbing it perfectly smooth; add a little salt, with a tea-spoonful of sugar, to a half pint of mustard. Instead of water, milk may be used, adding a little cream. This makes the mustard less biting and more delicate. It will keep well so mixed.

The mustard may be mixed and kept covered in a jar, and only so much as is daily used put into the glass belonging to the castors. Nothing looks worse than an ill-kept castor.

KITCHEN PEPPER SAUCE. Mix in a fine powder one ounce of ginger; of cinnamon, black pepper, nutmeg, and Jamaica pepper, half an ounce each; ten cloves and six ounces of salt. Keep it in a bottle. It is a pleasant addition to any brown sauces or soups.

RIPENING FRUITS.

Many persons are in the habit of plucking fruit before it is ripe, to perfect itself in the house. If the ripening of fruits by nature were fully understood, or if the chemical changes which take place, between the opening of the flower and the ripening of fruit or seed, were more fully comprehended, few, I think, would prefer this method. The fruit, in which the seeds of many plants are enveloped, is at first tasteless, afterwards more or less sour, and finally sweet. In the first stage of the plant's growth, the starch of the seed is transformed into gum and sugar; and subsequently, in the last stages of existence, the sugar and the sweet and milky sap are gradually transformed into starch in the formation of the seeds. Chemists can explain the mode and manner by which the first transition is