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Serving

In canning, preserving, jelly making, and pickling, white, porcelain-lined or new agate dishes should always be used. Acids in fruit, vegetables, and meat attack iron and tin, and the compounds formed discolor the food, rendering it unpalatable both in appearance and taste. When fruit is to be cooked in an open saucepan, the pan should be broad, that the fruit be not crushed. For canning fruit or vegetables which are to be cooked in the jars, a Mudge Canner is a delight; but a good steam kettle or a wash-boiler fitted with a rack that holds the cans from the bottom of the boiler answer all purposes. In cooking in the canner, as also in the steam kettle to some extent, the process is carried on under high pressure, thus the time required is shorter than in the wash-boiler.

A "waterless cooker," a cooker with a removable double bottom, fitted with several sheets of asbestos, or a large double boiler are serviceable when grapes, currants, and berries are to be used, that the juice may be canned for sherbets, jelly making, etc.