Home › Vegetables › Groceries (CELERY stalks should be white)
Groceries (CELERY stalks should be white)
CELERY stalks should be white, solid and clean. Celery begins in August, but it is better and sweeter after frost.
EGG-PLANT should be firm but not ripe. The large purple oval-shaped kind, is best.
MUSHROOMS are dangerous things for the inexperienced to buy, and should be let alone.
PEASE should be bought in pods and should feel cool and dry. If pods are rusty or spotted, they are too old to be good.
POTATOES. Select those of medium size, smooth, with small eyes. To test, cut off a piece of the large end; if spotted, they are unsound. In the spring, when potatoes are beginning to sprout, place a basket of them in a tub, pour boiling water over them; in a moment or two take out and place in sun to dry (on the grass is a good place), and then return to cellar. If they have sprouted too much it is best to first rub them off.
BERRIES.-Morning is the best time to eat fruit, and fresh fruit is then in the best condition to be eaten. When berries of any kind can be got fresh with the morning dew, fill the finest glass dish, adding a few fresh leaves, for a center-piece, on the breakfast table. Serve in saucers accompanied with fine white sugar (pulverized is the best and most economical for all purposes) and fresh cream if you have it, but never substitute skim milk. The berries will be very nice with only sugar, There is a vast difference between fruit with cream and fruit with milk. Cream is easily digested and slow to sour, while just the contrary is true of milk after the cream has been removed. Yet we have known people to live after eating strawberries aud buttermilk, and we have also known people to die after eating hot apple dumplings and cold milk. If you happen to be the fortunate possessor of a berry patch, let the children go out before breakfast and pick and eat. Properly trained children will not abuse this privilege.