The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-06-10
Once Upon a Time.

Once upon a time / knew little boy
who had been very i'll. When he was
getting better his mother asked him IL
he would like some rice. He said he
would, but did not want it all stodge
That may not be dictionary word, but
presume we all have an idea what it
means. / cook the sugar with rhubarb
and apple-sauce because do not want
it all stodge. / make no pretensions to
scientific cooking. Perhaps z. E. ].
has the same opinion of woman's
cooking that Bartle Massey had. An
other thing we housewives know is that
sauce will keep longer without ferment-
ing if the sugar is cooked with it. Once
upon time 1 knew woman (and l
know her stilD who read in the NeD
England Farmer that rhubarb was bet
ter cooked without peeling, and being
woman fond of experimenting she made
two rhubarb pies, one without peeling
and the other of peeled rhubarb. The
whole family voted that the best pie
was the one made of the rhubarb with
out peeling. The consequence was that
no more rhubarb was peeled in that
family. That was as much as fifteen
years ago. They use great deal of
rhubarb, and 1 have never known or
even heard of any of the family being
made sick in consequence. Once upon
time | heard of woman being made
sick by eating rhubarb pie. | do not
know whether the rhubarb was peeled
or not, but as she ate whole pie l sup
posed it was the quantity she ate that
made her sick. Once upon time |
knew person who was very fond of
rhubarb sauce. She ate it three times
day every day from the time that the
rhubarb was large enough to cook until
strawberries were ripe. 1t did not
make her sick, and 1 know that the
rhubarb was not peeled because | pre-
pared it myself. Pouring on the hot
water partially cooks the rhubarb so
that it will not stew out so readily in
baking pie, and think helps to remove
any strong taste there may be about the
peel. If you have not nice rhubarb
buy paper of seed and raise some. l
know boy (and by the way it is the
same boy that didn't want his rice all
stodge) who is selling rhubarb from
seed planted two years ago. Mrs. A. w.
REMARKs.-The old-fashioned rhu-
barb that was first introduced into gar
dens was not very much improved from
the original wild plant which is grown
for medicine. Our own early recollec-
tons bear testimony that this old rhu-
barb would sometimes produce pretty
lively internal disturbance, but whether
that was owing to its not being peeled
we cannot say. Certainly Mrs. A. w
is right in saying that the improved va
rieties, such as Victoria, Downing's
Colossal, Linneus or Paragon are quite
safe to use in that way. Good sorts can
also be selected from plants grown from
seed, but they rarely come true to the
parent plant when so raised. We once
grew over one hundred seedlings from
the Victoria, and had about one hun
dred varieties, good, bad and Indifferent
From these we selected about a dozen
but finally concluded that but one O.
these was superior to the older nance
sorts. This we have kept and propa
gated for the last fifteen years, growing
only one other kind for market, and tina
only because it is a few days earlier
Our Seeding we named the "Mam
MOTH" as it is of enormous size. Sew
eral years ago we filled an order for
st. Johnsbury party for one hundred
pounds with eighty-five stalks of thi
variety. In quality it is as good as thu
best, and it cooks more quickly thar
most others. We think so much of thi
rhubarb that we have an idea of send
ing as our next present to the CORE
spondents of THE HOUSEHOLD roo
of it, which we will forward to then
free by mail next October-if so re
quested.