Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1905-04-11
Cooking Vegetables.

Few people know how to cook vegeta-
bles properly. As rule they are only
about half cooked. The Americans are
especially ignorant about cooking vege-
tables. The French and the German
know how to cook vegetables, and the
American would do we'll to learn from
them how to prepare vegetables for the
table.
Go into an American hotel or restau-
rant and give your order for certain
kinds of vegetables, and they will be
brought to you served, perhaps in the
latest style, garnished and delicious to
look upon, but wholly ipdigestible and
totally unfit to eat. Peas and beans are
not even cooked until they are soft, but
are hard, lumpy, unpalatable and indi-
gestible. Stewed tomatoes will have q
bitter taste and asparagus will be mess
of hard, stringy substance. The whole
trouble is they are not cooked enough.
Vegetables require great deal of cook
ing. Those cooked and served in the
Ordinary hotel and the average American
home have totally different taste when
served from the table of the German
family where the hOusekeeper has pre-
served her Old-fashioned German cook
ing.
We have eaten vegetables at hotels and
restaurants, and we have also eaten
them at the table of the German house
wife, where they were cooked in the
pure German style. There is as much
difference in the taste of the German
cooked vegetables and the American
cooked as there is in the language Of the
two nations. The sloppy, watery,
half-raw American dishes are converted
by the German into succulent, delicious,
appetizing food.
We asked a German housewife one day
how she cooked her vegetables; what
made the difference between the ones
served oil American tables and those
cooked in the German style.
"Well," she replied, ''first cook my
vegetables long, long while, changing
the water several times. | drain of the
first water, and add fresh water, and
then perhaps drain off the second water
and put on fresh water again. cook
them until they are tender, very tender.
FOR instance, in cooking onions the
water becomes very yellowish green. !
drain this off, sometimes three or four
times. l think it gives the onions bet
ter taste and they are not so strong.
Then there is asparagus, change the
water two or three times in stewing
asparagus. l do the same way with
parsnips, cabbage, cauliflower; in fact,
almost all vegetables, think, are better
if cooked this way. l know that some
people say that drain away the strength
of the vegetable, but have tried both
ways and find that changing the water
takes away the strong taste from the
vegetable and gives it better flavor.
"If l cook canned peas empty them
from the can into a colahder and drain
off all the juice they have been canned
in, because there is always some kind of
acid used in canning them, and then l
wash the peas and put them on in clear
water, adding milk, salt, pepper, bit of
butter, and little sugar. / add sugar
to almost every vegetable l cook, espe-
cially tomatoes. Not enough to make
them taste of the sugar, but just enough
to take away the strong and acid taste.
I'm cooking turnips also change the
water several times, and instead of add
ing flour, as great many people do
to make them more dry, l put in a
couple of potatoes and mash them all
together. This renders the turnips very
much nicer than when flour is used.
You can't taste the potatoes in the
turnips, anyhow. Flour simply makes
the turnips a little less watery and the
potatoes do the same.
Vegetables should always be cooked
quite a long while, SO that they are
tender through and through. l think
the whole secret in cooking vegetables 30
that they are delicious and wholesome is
to change the water on them several
times, and cook them thoroughly DONE"
This is what the German housewife
said. But whether hers be the most
scientific way of cooking vegetables or
not, we cannot say, but we do know that
her vegetable dishes are fit for any king
or potentate on earth to eat. They are
wholesome, savory, toothsome, and d.
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