Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1881-02-17
ONTHE KEEPING OF FOOD.
rhe Meat safe. and What DIR. Richard
son Writes About it,

DR.. Richardson whose " Health at
Home" has been SO favorably com
mented upon, has in Good Words added
another chapter. directed to the keep
ING of food and drainage. We are not
IN the habit, as in English houses, of
keeping our food in the area Differ
ences of climate have suggested to lis
other methods. In Summer we use
the ice-chest; in Winter, the meat-safe.
Just now, with the extreme cold, add
vice as to ice-chests would hardly be
profitable; but in regard to the meat
safe great deal my be said, and DR..
Richardson's suggestions may be found
most useful. A great and radical mis-
take often arises in small houses as to
the placing of the meat-safe. As often
is not 1t is put in the basement hall. 1t
my happen that there is no other
place for it, and virtue must be made
Of necessity. If this is the only con-
yenlent place, beware of having it ad-
accent to any of the fiues which lead
up from the furnace in the cellar.
Even be quite sure, by feeling the walls,
that your neighbor's fires do not in
crease the temperature There is, of
course, less trouble in our climate in
keeping food in Winter than is sum
mer. Perhaps the best place for the
meatsafe is in those spare rooms ada
cent to the kitchen, providing there is
ventilation. a summer kitchen is a
good place for meat-safe. If the
tempsr ature be so low that freezing is
h,r he, !, r.
such cold weather should be moved to
warmer quarters, not that frozen meat
or food is unwholesome, but that it is
not palatable. All modern meat-safes
are constructed with wire-gauze win
dows. This is one of the necessaries of
yentllatlOn. If THIS wire gauze is paint
ed at time of the purchase Of the safe.
some untidy people will never think of
repalntlng the safe or the wire-gauz
windows, no matter how long that safe
mas been IN their possession. A meat
safe need not be painted all over every
year, but the wire-gauze grating should
he painted every season. 1t rusts rapid
Y, and II is prone to be a nursery Of
yegetable growth, TO keep the inter
Or of a safe clean is not always an
Easy thing, as scrubbing brush can
not be readily worked inside of it.. A
good housekeeper that we know Of has
these shelves double, and while one set
in service, another set is being scrub
ned and made ready. 1t may
appen that in the fall Of
he year, Just i'll uncertain weather,
hat food may spoil in the meat safe.
There is but one remedy for the purifi-
alton of the safe when a misfortune
i this kind occurs. 1t is not only to
Grub it most carefully, but after that
TO burn sulphur in the safe, and then
% rewash afterward. 1t is especially
lngerous to leave any germs Of de-
imposition in the safe.
It's by no means to by considered
1t safe is to be used as a receptacle
ill the food in use in the house.
reful housekeepers know perfectly
ellthat food which has anything like
particular odor to it is certain to i'm
regnate other thinks. A cold turkey,
With its stutling, will faint butter, and
milk will absorb the smell of cabbage.
inything of this character should not
be put in the safe, but have aplace by
self. Bread is always better and
weeter when placed in a tin by itself,
nd so is butter. As to milk, mo dern
ncthod, now SO much in vogue, of de-
yering milk in sealed glass jars, has
his great advantage, if it is not any
cher in quality, at least through
means of the closed vessel it keeps bet
er. The worst thing housekeeper
an do is to place anything hot in a
lfe. The varpor must condense some
where, and all the surrounding food alb
orbs this moisture.