Foods That Steal Flavors

It is generally understood that butter and milk can be tainted by proximity to decided flavors or odors, but not that all foods absorb and give out more or less of their individual aroma.

Vegetables of the plainest varieties are the worst offenders, not only onion and leek and the more pronounced ones, but the tame little beet and the saucy radish.

The subtle ways of these demure ones is something that households should guard against, but do not.

"We do get so tired of boarding," exclaims a woman who has gone back and forth from hotels to private boarding houses, but she does not realize the underlying reason.

The real reason is that the foods are all kept in the same place and all cooked in the same atmosphere, double occasion for the flavor exchange that takes place.

Fruits of the handsomest varieties are prone to make this exchange, and cheeses, wines and even nuts will do the same thing.

You leave celery in the ice chest with cream cheese, and if you have a discriminating taste you won't know which is which by nightfall.

Cream is so sensitive to influences that shut up in the cold box with a peach it will taste like peach ice cream before two hours.

It is difficult to keep these items apart always, but care can be exercised by placing the more delicate articles in covered jars and the vegetables in paper wrappers or even paraffin. Keep the ones most likely to exchange confidences in upper and lower partitions of the ice box, remembering that flavor crossing is an epicurean annoyance.

From page 79 of the 1904 edition.

Original pages from the book