Flour: Perfect flour has a slight yellow tinge and a faint, pleasant smell, especially after wetting. Dazzling whiteness indicates bleaching; a gray tinge or minute black specks, showing only under the microscope, grinding from spoiled grain. Test by gripping a handful—if it remains the shape of the hand and shows the lines of the palm, buy it. Gluten is a most desirable element. Test for it by wetting a pinch to a stiff dough, and washing the starch out of it in cold water. The greater and tougher the stringy residue the greater the gluten content. Wet another pinch very soft, take it betwixt thumb and finger, and try to spin a thread. If it spins, all well; if it does not, but makes only blobs on the finger tips, there is likely to have been corn ground with the wheat. Another test for corn admixture is to dry a pinch, but not scorch it, and rub between the finger tips. Pure wheat flour will not feel gritty, but corn, no matter how finely ground, remains a little rough.
Set flour barrels a little above the floor, and do not use the same one continuously. Any wooden container may become a harbor for insects. A japanned tin can, emptied and aired monthly, is best for keeping flour, meal, or oatmeal in bulk. All should be kept where it is dry, airy, and free of smells, as all take up taints very readily.
Cornmeal: Fresh water-ground cornmeal has a pleasant smell, and runs through the fingers without caking or clotting. A musty odor shows it is too old. Meal from white flint corn is much the most desirable. Sift it at need—the bran helps to keep it. Cornmeal kiln-dried and bolted, as it has to be for the grocers to save it from spoiling, is, in a sort a libel on the real thing. In it there is not much choice save between fine and coarse grinding. Fine-ground makes clammy bread, hence is to be avoided. But even kiln-drying should not quite take away the original fragrance. Perfect meal shows under the microscope round white grains like fairy hail.
Oatmeal: Beware that which has much grain dust between the grains. Examine carefully a double handful before buying in quantity; if you find even one trace of weevil, reject it. Weevil and sundry mites—Acari in scientific parlance—are the bane of grain foods if they are kept over long. Hence the caution of keeping them in bright metal away from dampness and molds.
Buckwheat Flour: Fresh buckwheat flour is of a slightly tawny cast and a lively velvet feel. Mustiness means age—at first there is hardly any smell. Clotting or caking indicates dampness either of grain or storage, hence a product below grade.
Grits and Hominy: Judge by the absence of grain dust and the even grinding; grains the same size approximately cook evenly. Examine a sprinkle through a magnifying-glass, and if there are signs of weevil or mites do not buy at any price. A pocket magnifier is cheap and handy, also it may save you many times its cost in a single month.
Coffee: Green coffee beans break with a clean fracture, and if the break is ragged or spongy there has been mold or heating. Roasted beans should show one-half very dark brown, the other half black but not scorched. Crack between the teeth; you can taste scorching. Fresh-ground coffee is stronger and more flavorous than that ground in bulk. Also there is less chance of adulteration. To test for adulteration, stir a pinch of ground coffee into a glass of cold water. Pure coffee settles to the bottom, leaving hardly a trace of color. Chicory will rise to the top, also making a kind of scum. Adulteration with roasted grain or bread or the artificial beans will color the water more or less deeply. Keep coffee in bright tin or glass, tightly closed, away from light, where it is dry and cool.
Tea: Tea is largely a matter of taste and brands, also prices. Very cheap tea is undesirable, being commonly adulterated with spent tea leaves. Tests vary as much as brands. A safe and easy one is to infuse a pinch of tea one minute in boiling water, pour off one-half, and let the other half stand, keeping at almost boiling heat for ten minutes. Pour off and compare in smell and taste with the first. Artificial color, if present, will show as dregs in the long steeping and reveal itself further in a faint metallic taste. Various copper salts are the commonest coloring matters, and, though the quantities are too small to be immediately dangerous, constant use may develop stomach trouble. Tea is best kept air-tight, dark, dry, and warm.
Butter: Beware butter too yellow, especially if winter-packed. Butter colors are harmless in the main, but some constitutions are intolerant of them. Look for firm texture slightly grained and a lively, agreeable smell. A sour smell and white specks show something to let alone. Keep tightly covered, dark, and cool, away from any possibility of taints.
Lard: If you do not know, experimentally, good fresh lard, get leaf fat, try it out, taking care not to scorch it, and use the product as a standard. Lard must be firm, but not hard, even-textured throughout, and with almost no smell. Your nose, if permitted, will tell you if it is either scorched or rancid—the two unpardonable faults. From grain-fed pork it is clear white, with now and then a faint cream tinge. Keep in glass or bright tin, tightly closed, where it is cool and dark.
Cheese: As to choice of cheese one cannot dogmatize; so much depends on individual palates. Get the best you can afford of your chosen sort. Good cheese cuts grainy rather than waxy—it is not too greasy, reasonably solid, and free, of course, of mites or weevil. Cut a section from a whole cheese, then butter well the cut surfaces, cover with wax paper, and keep dark, dry, and cool. Wrap the cut-out section in wax paper likewise, and keep in a covered crock for daily use. Keep fancy, strong-smelling cheeses well wrapped in tinfoil, then in wax paper, and laid inside a covered crock, set in a cool place.
Beef: Prime beef comes only from well-fatted animals, neither too young nor too old. Fat and suet are white, inclining faintly to cream; lean a dark, healthy red, which becomes brighter by hanging. Very yellow fat and scarlet lean indicate a condition below first class. The meat should not cut dry when raw, but neither should liquid follow the cleaver.
Mutton and Lamb: The fat over the ribs is the best index of quality; if it is half an inch or more, the animal was thriving. The fat should be white with hardly a trace of yellow, the lean a fine purply red, not too deep. Follow your nose in buying all manner of butcher’s stuff, remembering cooking will never work the miracle of making sound the unsound. Good spring lamb has very white fat, with lean inclining to pinkish red. If the rib fat covers the whole surface, all is well. The caul fat should be in lumps as big as the finger end. A strong sheepy smell of either lamb or mutton shows animals badly dressed, or, in case of mutton, too old. Press a bare finger hard upon the outer surface; if the meat feels grainy there has probably been treatment with some preservative.
Pork: Clear white fat and lean of a lively pink-red show perfect pork. It cannot well be too fat, yet if there are lumps or inflamed spots in the kidney fat, let it alone. Press hard on the skin; it should be elastic, and be sure there is only a fleshy smell. Sniff the big joints—spoiling begins there. Sniff sausage likewise, and reject if too highly seasoned. The seasoning may disguise less pleasant smells. It should be red and white speckled, the color predominant; five pounds of lean to three of fat is the best proportion.
Salt Meats: Streaky bacon should have white fat and dark-red lean—yellow fat is undesirable. It must smell lightly of smoke and have also a tang of salt. Salt pork must be very white and firm, the lean of it showing a dull-pale red. Hams must have white fat, thick and firm, and lean of a rich, clear red just the least inclined to purple. Look close around the bone; if the fat there is white and firm the ham is all right. It must, of course, have been well smoked. But too thick smoke, shown by a black-brown color, is undesirable. Corned beef should be clear red, firm, and clean-smelling. Dried beef should have a firm, dark outside and be a dark, clear red within. If it shaves to slivers partly transparent, it is very nearly perfect.
Poultry: All poultry save capons can be too fat. But it had better be too fat than too lean. Choose light-colored fat and firm pinky-white flesh. See that combs are fresh-colored, leg joints flexible, and skin soft. Much hard, deep-yellow fat indicates age. Milk-fed poultry, so called, is mainly so called—it may have got milk, but much else went with it. With ducks and geese, pull open the eyelids; if the eyes are filmed the birds are likely to have been killed too long. Freezing injures the quality of poultry. Dry-picked poultry is much more desirable than that which is scalded. To test for age look at the legs—scaliness is a sure mark of age. Press hard upon the breast bone; in a young fowl it bends a little, in an old one it is rigid.
Keeping Fresh Meat and Poultry: Never put meat or poultry in contact with ice, neither lay them flat in dish or pan. Put a rack under the meat, then set the pan in the refrigerator, first wiping the meat with a damp (not wet) cloth. This until cooking-time. Things to be kept several days should be well wiped, laid on waterproof paper, have lumps of charcoal put round and about, then wrapped, tied, put in cheesecloth bags, and hung where it is cool and airy. Lacking such hanging space, lay them on racks close to ice.
Salt Fish: Keep salt fish, whether dry or in brine, well away from all else. A good place for them is a big box with a tight cover, the cracks filled inside with putty and covered outside with paper. Put a shelf across for boxes and cartons; stand kits on the floor. Hinge on the top as a door, and fasten with hook and staple. Set the box on short legs, else put bricks under the corners.
Things in Glass: Glass jars, whether of preserves, fruit, or vegetables, had better be wrapped in paper, held on by a rubber band, and set so as not to touch. They should be kept where it is dark, dry, clean, and cool, on slat shelves or plank ones bored full of half-inch holes. Light, through its weird actinic rays, plays hob with flavors, and may even induce worse things. Yet jellies set in full sunlight for, say, ten days gain a richer texture and keep better ever after.
Fruit and Vegetable Storage: With a cool, dry, airy cellar have movable bins of slats with firm, low legs, whitewashed yearly inside and out. Store in them apples, potatoes, sweet and Irish, turnips, carrots, beets, what not. Lay grapes, choosing perfect bunches only, upon swinging slat shelves and cover with cheese cloth. In a temperature around forty degrees there will be no rotting nor drying up, provided only sound things have been brought in.
Canning Things: The secret of success in canning things is perfect sterilization. Do the work if possible in bright, windy weather, out doors if you can; if not, in a kitchen very clean and well aired. Bring into it no specked or rotten things—decay is a ferment the same as yeast, and spores of it spread through the air. It is better to prepare things outside. Drop apples, pears, or peaches in water as pared or hulled, and keep them covered until ready to cook. Have two kettles of syrup, one bubbling, the other barely simmering. Have a boiler of boiling water for the jars. Empty a jar just at the moment of using, fill it running over with boiling-hot fruit and seal instantly. The simmering-kettle is for filling up the other. Keep the bubbling-kettle filled with syrup to capacity, drop in barely fruit enough to fill a jar, cook for five minutes, then seal. A few cloves and a blade of mace in the top of each can improve flavor. Use at least half weight of sugar to fruit—three-fifths is better. Invert after sealing and screw tops harder when cool. If a can leaks, empty it, reheat, fill, and seal securely. Set hot jars away from draughts until cool. Remember, though, the fruit which comes out of your cans will be just as good and no better than what went into them. Therefore spend your time and strength only on good fruit, ripe, but not over-ripe.
Outdoor Pantries: Save in the very hottest weather edibles, cooked or raw, keep better in fresh air than in a refrigerator. An outdoor pantry can be set on a back porch or on legs in a shady yard, or even made fast to the wall. A goods box, whitewashed, set firmly about waist high, furnished with shelves inside and a door of screen wire, will hold meat, milk, cakes, pies, bread, surplus fruit, raw or cooked, and keep them to the queen’s taste. Have clean bags with drawstrings to slip over dishes of meat, as hams, roasts, a fowl in wait for Sunday dinner. Lay raw meat upon lumps of charcoal, put other lumps over it, and wrap tight in clean cloth, then lay upon a rack or slat shelf. Put milk in a bright tin bucket with a tight cover, stand it in a pan, put in half inch of water, then wrap the milk bucket with a thick cloth, letting it touch the water. It will keep damp and, by evaporation, cool the milk.
Where ice is hard to get have holes made with a post-hole digger, a foot across and four feet deep. Fit stout wooden tops to them big enough to lap an inch all round. Put a handle on firmly and screw a stout hook in the middle underneath. Suspend things from this hook by a cord or light chain, as a bucket of milk, or butter, a bottle of wine, water, or grape juice, or a bag of fruit. Fresh meat even can be kept several days, of course wrapping it well before hanging it. Rain ruins this form of cold storage, but for camps, summer bungalows, and so on it is a very present help.
A greater one is a dry well either rock-walled or planked up. Have it seven to eight feet deep, wide enough for a ladder, and set shelves around the edge. Or it may be simply dug, covered, and things let down into it at the end of strings. An abandoned well or cistern comes in handy for such use. If deep and dry, whole carcasses as of lambs, sheep, pigs, or deer can be hung and kept safe.
Dried Fruit: Keep sun-dried fruit in a warm, airy place, sunning it often. Look it over for worms, throw out infested bits, scald the residue one minute in full boiling water, spread thin, and dry in the oven. In a long damp spell bring dried fruit into the kitchen and hang where heat will strike it, but away from steam. All this applies equally to sun-dried vegetables, such as corn, okra, and green peas, likewise to beans and peas full grown.
Keeping Rich Cake: Plum cake, spice cake, or iced pound cake keep a long time treated thus: Pour a teaspoonful of brandy upon the under side, let it soak in, then wrap the whole loaf in a clean cloth and sprinkle with brandy. Put into an earthen crock with a tight cover, lay a fresh apple on top, and keep shut. Once a week set the crock upon a cooling range until warm through, removing the apple while warming. Put in a fresh apple every fortnight, and renew the brandy treatment at the same time. Plum cake almost demands this keeping, being better for a year of it. Other cakes should not be kept over six months.
Keeping Melons for Christmas: Plant melons so they will ripen a little before frost. Build a rail pen, floor it two feet above ground, and lay on the floor a foot of corn stalks well packed. Stand other stalks about the edge, then fill in a foot of fresh corn husks. Bed in these the melons, cut each with a short length of vine, and the vine ends dipped in melted paraffine. Wrap the melons in tissue paper, take care not to let them touch nor lie too close to the stalk wall. Cover with another foot of husks, packed down firmly, but not rammed. Over these put more corn stalks, filling the pen with them. Lay on a slanted roof of boards, weighting them in place.
Fresh Eggs: A strictly fresh egg has a tiny air space at either end betwixt shell and lining. Lying makes the air bubbles rise and join. A fresh egg sinks in water end down, one less fresh commonly lies on its side. Break an egg, empty the shell, look in the ends; if the spaces are lacking it is not fresh. Or boil hard—a fresh yolk will have white evenly all round. After some days the yolk will be near the shell or pressing against it.