Part 21

Cut pieces of quick, fat, rich, well tasted cheese, (as the best of Brye, Cheshire, &c. or sharp thick Cream-Cheese) into a dish of thick beaten melted Butter, that hath served for Sparages or the like, or pease, or other boiled Sallet, or ragout of meat, or gravy of Mutton: and, if you will, Chop some of the Asparages among it, or slices of Gambon of Bacon, or fresh-collops, or Onions, or Sibboulets, or Anchovis, and set all this to melt upon a Chafing-dish of Coals, and stir all well together, to Incorporate them; and when all is of an equal consistence, strew some gross White-Pepper on it, and eat it with tosts or crusts of White-bread. You may scorch it at the top with a hot Fire-Shovel.

TO FEED CHICKEN

First give them for two days paste made of Barley Meal and Milk with Clyster Sugar to scowre them. Then feed them with nothing but hashed Raisins of the Sun. The less drink they have, the better it is: for it washeth away their fat; but that little they have, let it be broken Beer; Milk were as good or better; but then you must be careful to have it always sweet in their trough, and no sowerness there to turn the Milk. They will be prodigiously fat in about twelve days: And you must kill them, when they are at their height: Else they will soon fall back, and grow fat no more.

Others make their Paste of Barley meal with Milk and a little course Sugar, and mingle with it a little (about an eight part) of powder of green Glass beaten exceeding small. Give this only for two days to cleanse their stomacks. Then feed them with paste of Barley-meal, made sometimes with Milk and Sugar, and sometimes with the fat skimmed off from the pot, giving them drink as above.

Others make a pretty stiff paste for them with Barley-meal (a little of the coursest bran sifted from it) and the fat scummed off from the boiling pot, be it of Beef (even salted) or Mutton, &c. Lay this before them for their food for four days. Then give them still the same, but mingled with a little powder of Glass for 4 or five days more. In which time they will be extremely fat and good. For their drink, give them the droppings of good Ale or good Beer. When you eat them, you will find some of the powder of glass in their stomacks, i.e. gizzards.

TO FEED POULTRY

My Lady Fanshaws way of feeding Capons, Pullets, Hens, Chickens or Turkies, is thus. Have Coops, wherein every fowl is a part, and not room to turn in, and means to cleanse daily the ordure behind them, and two troughs; for before that, one may be scalding and drying the day the other is used, and before every fowl one partition for meat, another for drink. All their Meat is this: Boil Barley in water, till it be tender, keep some so, and another parcel of it boil with Milk, and another with strong Ale. Let them be boiled as wheat that is creed. Use them different days for variety, to get the fowl appetite. Lay it in their trough, with some Brown-Sugar mingled with it. In the partition for Liquor, let them have water or strong Ale to drink. They will be very drunk and sleep; then eat again. Let a Candle stand all night over the Coop, and then they will eat much of the night. With this course they will be prodigiously fat in a fortnight. Be sure to keep them very sweet. This maketh the taste pure.

ANOTHER WAY OF FEEDING CHICKEN

Take Barley meal, and with droppings of small Ale, (or Ale it self) make it into a consistence of batter for Pan-cakes. Let this be all their food. Which put into the troughs before them, renewing it thrice a day, morning, noon and evening; making their troughs very clean every time, and keeping their Coops always very clean and sweet. This is to serve them for drink as well as meat, and no other drink be given them. Feed them thus six days; the seventh give them nothing in their troughs but powder of brick searced, which scowreth and cleanseth them much, and makes their flesh exceeding white. The next day fall to their former food for six days more, and the seventh again to powder of Brick. Then again to barley Meal and Ale. Thus they will be exceeding fat in fifteen days, and purely white and sweet.

TO FATTEN YOUNG CHICKENS IN A WONDERFULL DEGREE

Boil Rice in Milk till it be very tender and Pulpy, as when you make Milk Potage. It must be thick, almost so thick, that a spoon may stand an-end in it. Sweeten this very well with ordinary Sugar. Put this into their troughs where they feed, that they may be always eating of it. It must be made fresh every day. Their drink must be onely Milk, in another little trough by their meat-trough. Let a candle (fitly disposed) stand by them all night; for seeing their meat, they will eat all night long. You put the Chicken up, as soon as they can feed of themselves; which will be within a day or two after they are hatched, and in twelve days, or a fortnight, they will be prodigiously fat; but after they have come to their height, they will presently fall back. Therefore they must be eaten as soon as they are come to their height. Their Pen or Coop must be contrived so, that the Hen (who must be with them, to sit over them) may not go at liberty to eat away their meat, but be kept to her own diet, in a part of the Coop that she cannot get out of. But the Chicken must have liberty to go from her to other parts of the Coop, where they may eat their own meat, and come in again to the Hen, to be warmed by her, at their pleasure. You must be careful to keep their Coop very clean.

TO FEED CHICKEN

Fatten your Chicken the first week with Oatmeal scalded in Milk; the second with Rice and Sugar in Milk. In a fortnight they will be prodigiously fat. It is good to give them sometimes a little Gravel, or powder of Glass, to cleanse their maws, and give them appetite.

If you put a little bran with their meat, it will keep their maws clean, and give them appetite.

ANOTHER EXCELLENT WAY TO FATTEN CHICKEN

Boil white bread in Milk, as though you were to eat it; but make it thick of the bread, which is sliced into it in thin slices, not so thick as if it were to make a pudding; but so, that when the bread is eaten out, there may some liquid milk remain for the Chicken to drink; or that at first you may take up some liquid Milk in a spoon, if you industriously avoid the bread: sweeten very well this potage with good Kitchin Sugar of six pence a pound; so put it into the trough before them. Put there but a little at a time, (two or three spoonfuls) that you may not clog them, and feed them five times a day, between their wakening in the morning, and their roosting at night. Give them no other drink; the Milk that remaineth after they have eaten the bread, is sufficient; neither give them Gravel, or ought else. Keep their Coops very clean, as also their troughs, cleansing them very well every morning. To half a dozen very little Chickens, little bigger then black-birds, an ordinary porenger full every day may serve. And in eight days they will be prodigiously fat, one peny loaf, and less then two quarts of Milk and about half a pound of Sugar will serve little ones the whole time. Bigger Chickens will require more, and two or three days longer time. When any of them are at their height of fat, you must eat them; for if they live longer, they will fall back, and grow lean. Be sure to make their potage very sweet.

AN EXCELLENT WAY TO CRAM CHICKEN

Stone a pound of Raisins of the Sun, and beat them in a Mortar to Pulp; pour a quart of Milk upon them, and let them soak so all night. Next morning stir them well together, and put to them so much Crums of Grated stale white bread as to bring it to a soft paste, work all well together, and lay it in the trough before the Chicken (which must not be above six in a pen, and keep it very clean) and let a candle be by them all night. The delight of this meat will make them eat continually; and they will be so fat (when they are but of the bigness of a Black-bird) that they will not be able to stand, but lie down upon their bellies to eat.

TO FEED PARTRIDGES THAT YOU HAVE TAKEN WILDE

You must often change their food, giving them but of one kind at a time, that so their appetites may be fresh to the others, when they are weary of the present. Sometimes dry wheat; Sometimes wheat soaked two or three days in water, to make it soft and tender; Sometimes barley so used; Sometimes oats in like manner. Give them continually to lie by them; Some of the great green leaves of Cabbages, that grow at the bottom of the stalk, and that are thrown away, when you gather the Cabbage; which you may give them either whole or a little chopped. Give them often Ants and their Eggs, laying near them the inward mould of an Ant hill, taken up with the Ants in it.

TO MAKE PUFFS

Take new milk Curds, strained well from the whey; then rub them very well; season them with Nutmeg, Mace, Rose-water and Sugar; then take an Egg or two, a good piece of Butter, and a handful of flower; work all together, and make them into Balls; bake them in an oven, upon sheets of Paper; when they are baked, serve them up with butter melted and beaten with Rose-water and Sugar. In stead of flower, you may take fine grated-bread, dried very well, but not Crisp.

APPLES IN GELLY

My Lady Paget makes her fine preserved Pippins, thus: They are done best, when Pippins are in their prime for quickness, which is in November. Make your Pippin-water as strong as you can of the Apples, and that it may be the less boiled, and consequently the paler, put in at first the greatest quantity of pared and quartered Apples, the water will bear. To every Pint of Pippin-water add (when you put the Sugar to it) a quarter of a pint of fair spring-water, that will bear soap (of which sort only you must use) and use half a pound of Sugar, the purest double refined. If you will have much gelly, two Pippins finely pared and whole, will be enough; you may put in more, if you will have a greater proportion of substance to the gelly. Put at first but half the Sugar to the Liquor; for so it will be the paler. Boil the Apples by themselves in fair water, with a very little Sugar, to make them tender; then put them into the liquor, and the rest, the other half of the Sugar with them. Boil them with a quick fire, till they be enough, and the liquor do gelly, and that you see the Apples look very clear, and as though they were transparent. You must put the juyce of two Limons and half an Orange to this in the due time. Every Pippin should be lapped over in a broad-pill of Orange; which you must prepare thus. Pare your Orange broad and very thin, and all hanging together, rub it with Salt, prick it, and boil it in several waters, to take away the bitterness, and make it tender. Then preserve it by it self with sufficient quantity of Sugar. When it is throughly done, and very tender (which you must cast to do before hand, to be ready when the Apples are ready to be put up) take them out of their Syrup, and lap every Pippin in an Orange-peel, and put them into a pot or glass, and pour the liquor upon them: which will be gelly over and about the Apples, when all is cold. This proportion of liquor, Apples, and Orange-peels, will take up about three quarters of a pound of Sugar in all. If you would keep them any time, you must put in weight for weight of Sugar.

I conceive Apple-John's in stead of Pippins will do better, both for the gelly and Syrup; especially at the latter end of the year; and I like them thin sliced, rather than whole; and the Orange-peels scattered among them in little pieces or chipps.

SYRUP OF PIPPINS

Quarter and Core your Pippins; then stamp them in a Mortar, and strain out the Juyce. Let it settle, that the thick dregs may go to the bottom; then pour off the clear; and to have it more clear and pure, filter it through sucking Paper in a glass funnel. To one pound of this take one pound and an half of pure double refined Sugar, and boil it very gently (scarce simpringly, and but a very little while) till you have scummed away all the froth and foulness (which will be but little) and that it be of the consistence of Syrup. If you put two pound of Sugar to one pound of juyce, you must boil it more & stronglier. This will keep longer, but the colour is not so fine. It is of a deeper yellow. If you put but equal parts of juyce and Sugar, you must not boil it, but set it in a _Cucurbite in bulliente Balneo_, till all the scum be taken away, and the Sugar well dissolved. This will be very pale and pleasant, but will not keep long.

You may make your Syrup with a strong decoction of Apples in water (as when you make gelly of Pippins) when they are green; but when they are old and mellow, the substance of the Apple will dissolve into pap, by boiling in water.

Take three or four spoonfuls of this Syrup in a large draught of fountain water, or small posset-Ale, _pro ardore urinæ_ to cool and smoothen, two or three times a day.

GELLY OF PIPPINS OR JOHN-APPLES

Cut your Apples into quarters (either pared or unpared). Boil them in a sufficient quantity of water, till it be very strong of the Apples. Take the clear liquor, and put to it sufficient Sugar to make gelly, and the slices of Apple; so boil them all together, till the slices be enough, and the liquor gelly; or you may boil the slices, in Apple-liquor without Sugar, and make gelly of other liquor, and put the slices into it, when it is gelly, and they be sufficiently boiled. Either way, you must put at the last some juyce of Limon to it; and Amber and Musk if you will. You may do it with halves or quartered Apples, in deep glasses, with store of gelly about them. To have these clear, take the pieces out of the gelly they are boiled in, with a slice, so as you may have all the rags run from them, and then put neat clean pieces into clear gelly.

PRESERVED WARDENS

Pare and Core the Wardens, and put a little of the thin rind of a Limon into the hole that the Core leaveth. To every pound of Wardens, take half a pound of Sugar, and half a pint of water. Make a Syrup of your Sugar and Water; when it is well scummed, put it into a Pewter dish, and your Wardens into the Syrup, and cover it with another Pewter dish; and so let this boil very gently, or rather stew, keeping it very well covered, that the steam get out as little as may be. Continue this, till the Wardens are very tender, and very red, which may be in five, or six, or seven hours. Then boil them up to the height the Syrup ought to be to keep: which yet will not be well above three or four months. The whole secret of making them red, consisteth in doing them in Pewter, which spoileth other preserves, and in any other mettal these will not be red. If you will have any Amber in them, you may to ten or twelve pounds of Wardens, put in about twenty grains of Amber, and one, or at most, two grains of Musk, ground with a little Sugar, and so put in at the last. Though the Wardens be not covered over with the Syrup in the stewing by a good deal, yet the steam, that riseth and cannot get out, but circulateth, will serve both to stew them, and to make them red and tender.

SWEET MEAT OF APPLES

My Lady Barclay makes her fine Apple-gelly with slices of John apples. Sometimes she mingles a few Pippins with the John's to make the Gelly. But she liketh best the John's single, and the colour is paler. You first fill the glass with slices round-wise cut, and then the Gelly is poured in to fill up the vacuities. The Gelly must be boiled to a good stiffness. Then when it is ready to take from the fire, you put in some juyce of Limon, and of Orange too, if you like it: but these must not boil; yet it must stand a while upon the fire stewing in good heat, to have the juyces Incorporate and Penetrate well. You must also put in some Ambergreece, which doth exceeding well in this sweet-meat.

A FLOMERY-CAUDLE

When Flomery is made and cold, you may make a pleasant and wholesome caudle of it, by taking some lumps and spoonfuls of it, and boil it with Ale and White wine, then sweeten it to your taste with Sugar. There will remain in the Caudle some lumps of the congealed flomery, which are not ungrateful.

PLEASANT CORDIAL TABLETS, WHICH ARE VERY COMFORTING, AND STRENGTHEN NATURE MUCH

Take four ounces of blanched Almonds; of Pine kernels, and of Pistachios, _ana_, four Ounces. Erin-go-roots, Candid-Limon peels, _ana_, three Ounces, Candid Orange peels two Ounces, Candid Citron-peels four Ounces, of powder of white Amber, as much as will lie upon a shilling; and as much of the powder of pearl, 20 grains of Ambergreece, three grains of Musk, a book of leaf gold, Cloves and Mace, of each as much as will lie upon a three pence; cut all these as small as possible you can. Then take a pound of Sugar, and half a pint of water, boil it to a candy-height, then put in the Ambergreece and Musk, with three or four spoonfulls of Orange flower water. Then put in all the other things and stir them well together, and cast them upon plates, and set them to dry: when both sides are dry, take Orange-flower-water and Sugar, and Ice them.

TO MAKE HARTS-HORN GELLY

Take four Ounces of Harts-horn rasped, boil it in four pound of water, till it will be a gelly, which you may try upon a plate (it will be so, in four or five or six hours gentle boiling) and then pass the clear liquor from the horn (which will be a good quart) then set it on the fire again with fine Sugar in it to your taste; when that is dissolved (or at the same time you put that in) put half a pound of white-wine or Sack into it, and a bag of Spice, containing a little Ginger, a stick of Cinnamon bruised, a Nutmeg quartered, two or three Cloves, and what other Spice you like, but Pepper. As soon as it beginneth to boil, put into it the whites of three or four Eggs beaten, and let it boil up gently, till the Eggs harden into a curd. Then open it with a spoon, and pour into it the juyce of three or four good Limons; then take it presently off the fire, letting it not boil more above a walm: Then run it through a Hippocras bag, putting spirit of Cinnamon, or of Ambergreece, or what you please to it.

For gelly of flesh you proceed in the same manner, with a brawny Capon or Cock, and a rouelle of Veal (first skinned, and soaked from the blood) in stead of Harts-horn: and when the broth will gelly, do as above, using a double or treble proportion of wine. Boil no Salt in it at first, for that will make the gelly black.

HARTS-HORN GELLY

Take a pound of Harts-horn, and boil it in five quarts of water, until it come to three pints, then strain it through a sieve or strainer, and so let it stand, until it be cold; and according to the strength you may take more or less of the following Ingredients. First, take your stock of gelly, & put it into a skillet or pipkin with a pound of fine loaf Sugar, and set it over a fire of Charcoal; and when it begins to boil, put in a pint or more of Rhenish-wine. Then take the whites of Eggs six or eight, beaten very well, with three or four spoonfuls of Rose-water, and put into the gelly. Then take two grains of Amber, and one grain of Musk, and put thereto, so let it boil a quarter of an hour, but not too violent; Then put in three or four spoonfuls of Cinnamon-water, with the juyce of seven or eight Limons; boil it one walm more, and run it very hot through your gelly-bag; this done, run it again as cool and softly as you can into your Glasses and Pots.

TO MAKE HARTS-HORN GELLY