Page:Completeconfectioner Glasse 1800.djvu/357

 vinegar, you may use white wine vinegar, or even allegar, but it must be boiled with a little mace, salt, and a few slices of ginger; it must be cold before you pour it on your mushrooms. If your vinegar or allegar is too sharp, it will make your mushrooms soft; neither will they keep so long, or appear so white.

Take the largest and closest you can get; pull them into sprigs, put them in an earthen dish, and sprinkle salt over them; let the stand twenty-four hours to draw out all the water, then put them in a jar, and pour salt and water boiling over them; cover them close, and let them stand till the next day; then take them out, and lay them on a coarse cloth to drain; put them into glass jars, and put in a nutmeg sliced, and two or three blades of mace in each jar: cover them with distilled vinegar, and tie them down with a bladder, and over that a leather: they will be fit for use in a month.

These are the flower-buds of a small shrub, preserved in pickle. The three which bears capers is called the caper-shrub, or bush, and is common in the western part of Europe. We have them in some gardens, but Toulon is the principal place for capers. We have some from Lyons, but they are flatter, and less firm; and some come from Majorca, but they are salt and disagreeable. The finest flavoured are from Toulon. They gather the buds from the blossoms before