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Good Common Mince-Meat

2 pounds of minced beef or tongue. 3 pounds of suet. 4 pounds of currants. 3 pounds of apples. 1 pound of raisins. 1 pound of brown sugar. 1 ounce of mixed ground spices. 1 pound of candied citron, or the same of orange and lemon rinds boiled tender. 1 pint of common brandy. 3 quarts of cider, or enough to make it juicy.

Put the raisins in whole. Mince all the rest, seasoning the meat and suet a little with salt and pepper. Should be kept 3 or 4 weeks before using. Makes about 40 or 50 pies.

Nothing is saved by buying trashy currants. They have to be well washed and picked over free form stones, and the more dirt there is the more will wash away. Some currants are like small raisins, nice and clean and large. There is no waste in them.

TO CLEAN CURRANTS.--Put them into a colander with holes not too large; set that down in a pan half full of warm water and stir the currants about vigorously. The dirt will go through the holes. Pour the water away two or three times. This is the quickest plan and most thorough. Spread the currants out in a baking pan; pick them over and let them dry for use. TO CLEAN RAISINS.--When sultana seedless are furnished, or even the larger kind of seedless raisins, put them in a colander with a handful of flour mixed in, and rub off the fine stems, which then by sifting about will fall through the holes. When the greater part have been so got rid of, the raisins must be picked over separately, especially to remove the gravel stones may chance to be among them. Layer raisins have to be seeded to be good in anything. A most tedious operation and requiring such help as can be had. Some thirty years ago the English Vegetarians made a good deal of noise in the world. Their headquarters was in the Channel Islands, where their representative paper was published. It was called the Vegetarian Banner and Manx Healthian Journal. Its motto was "Fruits and Farinacea, the Proper Food of Man." Its leading idea was, that abstinence from meat diet would make the world better. Those who supported it set themselves to work earnestly to get up a new system of cookery wherein meat should have no place, and a great many curiosities in the way of bills-of-fare of dinners without meat were published in it in consequence. The annexed is one of their receipts. The cider excepted.