LETTER ON VEGETABLES

To-day our lesson is on vegetables. Every food that has grown in the ground is called a vegetable ; and to explain it to you in the simplest way, I will divide them into classes.

Here are Seeds, such as wheat, oats, corn, rice, etc.

Roots, such as carrots, oyster-plants, beets, potatoes, parsnips.

Leaves, as spinach, lettuce, all kinds of greens. . Stems, like celery, rhubarb, asparagus.

The seeds all contain more starch than anything else, and the skin of all these seeds cracks in the boiling water, the inside swells and becomes gummy.

Therefore, long boiling is essential for all starched foods.

The roots are mostly vegetables that will last all winter if prop- erly taken care of.

Toward spring you must watch them and pick off the sprouts, lest they become rank.

Soak them to plump them, and cook them with greater care.

The roots are particularly nice when they first come, if quite ripe. When young and tender they require less time to cook.

The Leaves should be thoroughly washed and put into salted water just beginning to boil — one table-spoonful of salt to every two quarts of water. The water should be drawn fresh, and the vegetables put in its first boiling, or they will not look a good color.

A bit of soda, size of a pea, is necessary to counteract an unhealthy oil in spinach as well as in all beans.

Nearly all vegetables are dressed with salt and butter, sometimes a little sugar and pepper sprinkled in at the last.

Spinach and cabbage are apt to be sandy unless carefully looked over and washed.

The first washing should be done in warm, not cold water, in which it should be shaken up and down, but not allowed to lie.

Asparagus and celery are both cooked as a vegetable, and seasoned

Io8 LESSON SEVENTH.

with butter and salt ; but rhubarb, which is more for a sauce, has only suear cooked in it.

In a city like New York all varieties are in the market nearly all the months of the year ; but not until they are growing near where we live can we expect to find them cheap.

During the summer, if you can get them fresh and cook them nicely, you will not need to buy near as much meat, and can make many nice dishes, mostly all vegetables.

Question. How are vegetables divided?

Answer. Into four classes : Roots, such as carrots. Seeds, as oats, rice, etc. Leaves, as spinach, lettuce, etc. Stems, as asparagus, cel- ery, etc.

Q. How should the roots be prepared for cooki7tg ?

A. Washed and scraped.

Q. How should the leaves be prepared ?

A. Thoroughly washed and carefully looked over.

Q. In salting the water for vegetables, what are the proportions ?

A. One table-spoonful of salt to two quarts of water.

Q. In boiling spinach and beans, what should be ptct into the water ?

A. A bit of soda size of a pea.

Q. What is this for ?

A. To make the greens a good color, and to correct the effects of an unhealthy oil which is in spinach.

Q. How should spinach be washed f

A. First in warm (not hot) water, dipped in and out, but not allowed to lie.

Q. How is rhubarb used?

A. As a sauce, and is seasoned with sugar.