Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1882-03-02
CLEANLINESS.
The Next Thing to Goodness In the
Culinary Department


Mrs. H. w. Beecher, in the Domestic
Monthly, advises housekeepers that If
such articles as are indispensable in
cooking the simplest meals ar not kept
neatly, it will not be long before the
food cooked in them will tell the story.
But those housekeepers who are con-
tent if they order the meals, and feel
no obligation to lend helping hand in
the preparation, and make no examin-
alton of the condition of their kitchen
closete after the work of the day is
finished, will not understand where the
evil originates. How indignant they
would be should one suggest the posi-
bility that the vessels in which the food
was prepared might be in very untidy
state, or were needing some little over
sight and attention from the mistres of
the house.
How often one hears: "What can be
the reason that the bottom crust of my
bread tastes like rancid butter !" EN-
anime for yourself and you will see
that the bread pans are buttered every
time they are used, but never washed
alter use; can you wonder that the ac-
cumulatlon of greasy particles, added
day after day, never removed or cleaned
off, will in time grow rancid Why
should not the bottom crust taste of it?
1t is well if the taste does not prevade
the loaf all through.
Just SO with the plates. If the stone
china is used, the glazing seldom cracks,
and If they are carefully washed and
aired each time they are used, and once
week boiled IN little lye water, they
can be kept sweet till destroyed by ac-
cldent or carelessness. But if set aside
without careful washing and drying,
nothing can be more disagreeable
How often, think you, is the meld-
lng-board hung up unwashed after
molding bread or rolling pastry, and
the dough that adheres to it left to
dry or sour and mould on it, and then
the next batch kneaded on this same
unwashed board?
" Impossible saw it hanging up in
the store closet over the flour barrel as
passed by, only this morning, and it
was clean"
Please turn it over, madam, under
side up, before you speak with too much
certainty. And how about the rolling
pin and the flour sieve? See ifthe last is
not thrown into the flour barrel with
bits of dough, from the cooks hands,
sticking to 1t. If so, when the barrel of
flour is about half used you may find
that the remainder of the -four has be-
come suddenly sour. "a little leaven
leaveneth the whole lump" remember,
and look at your saucepan, vegetable
boilers, gridirons, meat pans. etc.
''What ails this steak? 1t tastes as
if the meat We're tainted" Look to the
gridiron or frying-pan. The butter
and fat that accumulates day after day,
week after week, without being thor
oughly cleaned off, will soon injure the
flavor ofanything cooked on or in them.
See the bars of the gridiron and the
pans all scalded, incrusted and rough
with the accumulation, never thor
oughly cleaned off, until the bars and
sides are nearly double their usual
thickness.
All iron-work needs thorough clean
ing every time it is used, and non. more
than gridiron. The bars should be
kept perfectly clean and smooth, and
buttered every time they are used, if
one desires steak cooked to perfec-
ton,